Spring Newsletter 2013

In this Issue: Film & Literature

Spring Newsletter 2013 West African Film & Literature: An Introduction Historically the study of African cinema has been synonymous with the study of West African Film. The first region of the continent to develop a unique style wrought by Black African auteurs, West Africa remains at the heart of film production. Recently, digital technology and social media have allowed unprecedented access for both filmmakers and audiences. One of the most interesting aspects of West African film is the way films are being financed and released. The costs of making a film, though still significant, have been reduced with the introduction of digital technology. The Nigerian film industry, or Nollywood, is a modern example of vertical integration. Nollywood promotes a single entity controlling and/or directly affecting production, distribution, and exhibition. This marketing strategy is certainly one to be studied by aspiring filmmakers. Additionally, the advent of wireless Internet makes it possible for African filmmakers to make direct contact with global audiences, especially in the African diaspora. Filmmakers are able to promote on-line streaming and purchase of films that had no means of being exhibited in local theaters (where available), or of securing major distribution networks. These new platforms have infiltrated even the oldest African film festival, FESPACO, where last year there was at least one entry, Victor Viyuoh’s Ninah's Dowry (2012) that was produced with funds secured via crowd sourcing. While FESPACO remains the primary venue for African film in West Africa, there are now major festivals in the U.S., Canada, the UK and elsewhere. The film festival circuit is yet another way that films and filmmakers are exposed to wider audiences, increased possibilities for financial backing, and professional filmmaking networks. Given the unprecedented access to digital technology and new platform-based means of distribution, it is an incredibly exciting time in the world of filmmaking in general and West African cinema in particular. This quarter’s newsletter is a salute to West African Films and the literature that often inspires them. —— The Newsletter Committee

West African Research Association

Film Production in Francophone West Africa: The Specter of Colonialism? In the era of independence in the 1960s, Francophone West Africa was a leader in film production in sub-Saharan Africa, with the first generation of filmmakers from Senegal, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta). Fifty years later, the field of African cinema is marked by an effervescence of different regional cinemas in French, English, Portuguese and Arabic. To understand the current state of film production in Francophone West Africa, it is necessary to go back to its beginnings in the colonial period and at independence. Colonial exploitation In 1900, Dakar became the black African entryway to colonial cinema. Originally used to coax indigenous audiences with gag movies, (“l’arroseur arrose”, and the “Bouboule” series), commercial exploitation quickly developed with the establishment of COMACICO (Compagnie Marocaine de cinematographie et de commerce) in 1926, and SECMA (Societe d’Exploitation Cinematographique Africaine) in 1935. This was followed by a succession of several European and American colonial companies and organisms (SOPACIA, UGC, AFRAM films, SODECINAF) that paid back most of the revenues earned in the West African territory to western consortia. Exploitation of the 110 theaters in West and Central French-speaking Africa did not bring anything for capital reinvestment in the movie industry in Africa, but was injected in Europe and in other areas deemed more profitable. National distribution and exhibition companies, often born in difficult struggles (SONAVOCI, Upper Volta, 1970), remain dominated by these consortia and their shareholders. This is the same period, in the early 1970s, that witnessed the

first national societies responsible for production, but poor Continued on page 20

For an update on the situation on Mali, see Dr. Lori -Anne Théroux-Bénoni’s article,” A United Nations Operation in Mali: A Doctrinal Shift?” page 6

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Inside this Issue:

WARA Officers President Scott Youngstedt Saginaw Valley State University

Feature Articles West African Film and Literature: An Introduction Film Production in Francophone West Africa Exit the Elder of African Letters: A Eulogy to Chinua Achebe A United Nations Operation in Mali Editorial: Arab Racism Invades Mali

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Vice President Wendy Wilson-Fall LaFayette College

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U.S. Director Jennifer Yanco Boston University Assistant to the Director Stephanie Guirand

News From WARA and WARC From Board President, Scott Youngstedt From WARA Director, Jennifer Yanco From WARC Director, Ousmane Sene From AROA Secretary General, Ibrahima Seck 2013 WARA Grantee Announcements WARA Board Profiles

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WARC Director Ousmane Sene Universite Cheikh Anta Diop Graduate Assistant Jillian Jaeger Boston University Contact Information

From Our Fellows Analyzing Public Attitudes Toward Waste Management Architecture & Technical Expertise in West Africa Community-Based Health Planning Violence in African–American Fiction Exploring the Fresh Pineapple Export Chains in Ghana Yoruba Non-Verbal Communication

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DAART Reports PARO Guinean Women Peace Groups COFRAIR Mutations Magic Thermal Basket Cadre de Concentration des Filles

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WARA News and Other Updates Windows to West Africa Art Exhibit WARA ASA Roundtable Films and Literature in West Africa Announcements

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From our Members Member Spotlight: Edris Makward Member Publications Institutional Members

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WARA African Studies Center Boston University 232 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02215 Tel: 617-353-8902 Email: [email protected] WARC B.P. 5456 (Fann-Residence) Rue E x Leon G. Damas Dakar, Senegal Tel: (221)865-22-77 Email: [email protected] This newsletter is published twice a year by the West African Research Association with the support of the African Studies Center and the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University. It is distributed to all members and associates of WARA. Material for publication in upcoming newsletters should be submitted to the editor at the WARA email address above. Please send an electronic version of your submission. WARA has the right to reject items that do not comply with the goals and purposes of the organization and reserves the right to edit and/or modify any submissions for content, format or length. Opinions expressed in published articles, however, belong solely to the author(s).


Exit the Elder of African Letters: A tribute to Chinua Achebe Today, Saturday, March 23, almost all Dakar-based dailies carried stories paying homage to one of the most famous names in African literature and culture, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, universally known as Chinua Achebe. Like Nwaka and especially Ezeulu, one of his most flamboyant and admirable characters in the tragic novel Arrow of God, Achebe was a true “owner of words.” With his pen, Achebe exposed the cultural traps and snares of colonization in an attempt to consolidate political independence with the liberation of the African mind and its reconciliation with its true past, traditions and values. Writing, indeed, is juggling and weaving meaningful and significant patterns with words. And Achebe excelled in the exercise with his first-hand mastery of the English language and consummate knowledge of Igbo wisdom through the use of proverbs. This double capacity could be best illustrated with the analysis of one such proverb from the same Nwaka in Arrow of God: "Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own." The proverb is accurately rendered in perfect English, but the English words do not exhaust the meaning of the saying. What's in a goatskin bag to account for the relativity and versatility of wisdom? The English words are not enough to make this explicit. As it turns out, from one to another, goatskins are never of the same hue and carry differing spots and patches. The bag being hand sewn, its shape will never be the same as that of another pouch, since sewing patterns vary with the steadiness or unsteadiness of the sewing hand. Goatskin bags in Igboland carry various and dissimilar contents: a piece of chalk to draw on the ground the signs of peace when visiting a neighbor, a pipe and a tobacco leaf, and or one or two chunks of cola nut, a flint to light up one's pipe, or dry fish. Such is wisdom: just like the goatskin bag it is never the same in hues and colors, never the same in shape, never the same in contents. It takes a well-seasoned Igbo or well-grounded scholar of Igbo life and culture to cull the meaning of the proverb through a cultural reading. Such was Achebe: so much of a master of the Queen's English, yet so versed and steeped in the subtleties of the Igbo language and culture. Indeed, the author of Things Fall Apart wrote in English but spoke ‘African’ to all of his readers. And he did this so well that another wise man, Nelson Mandela, stated that Achebe "brought Africa to the rest of the world" and praised him as "the writer in whose company the prison walls came down". Achebe: may you rest in peace in Ani-Mmo with the fathers of Umuaro, chief among whom the proud priest of Ulu, Ezeulu. Ousmane Sene Director, West African Research Center

Message From Board President I want to begin by thanking Mbye Cham for his three years of superb service as WARA President. I am confident that with the continuing support Mbye has generously offered and our fantastic WARA/WARC team that we will continue to flourish together. I am incredibly honored to serve WARA as President. I agreed to take on this role as I am deeply committed to our mission and due to my enormous respect for our Executive Directors, Jennifer Yanco and Ousmane Sene, and the first-rate scholarship and remarkable creative energy of our members. Jennifer and Ousmane’s relentless work ethic, professionalism, creative thinking, warmth, and pragmatic optimism have for many years impressed me. As is evident in their reports, due in large part to their efforts, WARA and WARC have been busier than ever and our reputation as a unique and crucial scholarly and cultural resource continues to grow. The announcement of our fellowship and grant awardees always make this an exciting season for WARA. I congratulate this year’s awardees and look forward to reading their reports and the publications that will follow. I join Jennifer in thanking the Fellowship Committee and others identified in her report for their careful work that involves very difficult decisions, as we always receive many more worthy applications than we can fund. I also want to want to express my gratitude to Jemadari Kamara, Pearl Robinson, and Rebecca Golden-Timsar who have been particularly busy with their work on the Finance and Development Committee. They have been meeting regularly face-to-face and online to implement our innovative Fund Development Plan designed to allow us to continue moving forward in these financially challenging times. We are now planning for our mid-year meeting of the WARA Executive Committee, which will take place in April. The mid-year executive meeting was instituted in 2010, so this will be our fourth such meeting. We have found it to be enormously helpful in maintaining effective governance of the association. In addition to what surely will be a very important WARA roundtable at this year’s ASA meeting , I want to encourage you to attend a proposed panel consisting entirely of WARA members. The panel, Niamey, Niger: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on an African City, will be chaired by Amanda Gilvin, and will include papers by Gilvin, Hilary Hungerford, and Ousseina D. Alidou, and me, with Alice Kang serving as discussant. Scott M. Youngstedt WARA President


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News From WARA and WARC Headquarters From the WARA and WARC Directors Greetings to all of you as we transition into spring, something that those of us in Boston will be very happy to see! It has been a busy winter; we have just completed the preparation of our annual audit and tax filings. At WARC, we have contracted with Deloitte Senegal for a comprehensive audit of WARC that will take place this year. The 2013 WARA Fellows have just been announced (see p. 9); congratulations to this year’s awardees! I would like to acknowledge the members of the WARA fellowship committee—Ismail Rashid (chair), Wendy Wilson Fall, and Hilary Jones for their generosity in taking on this responsibility and for doing such a conscientious job of it. We are also most grateful to librarians Beth Restrick (Boston University), Emilie Songolo (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Diane Ryan (Digital Library for International Research), and Adama Diouf (WARC Library) for reviewing applications for the WARC Library Fellowship. Our thanks go as well to the review committee for Travel Grants. For the spring competition, we have received more than 70 applications. These will be reviewed by the AROA review committee whose members include Professors Ibrahima Seck and Louis Mendy, both of Universite Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar. WARC celebrated Black History Month with a number of programs, including a tribute to Jayne Cortez and the Black Arts Movement. Here in the Boston area, WARA joined with the Daughters of Yemaya Arts Collective to host an art exhibit, Windows to West Africa. Curated by former BU Art History student, Helen Banach, the exhibit showcased the textiles, sculpture, paintings, and other works from the region. The Opening reception featured music by Malian drummer Joh Camara, and the Closing reception, a talk by Professor Bolaji Campbell of the Rhode Island School of Design on the shared legacy of West African and African American art forms. We look forward to welcoming the Honorable Maman Sidikou, Ambassador of Niger to the United States, who will speak on "Good and Bad Politics: Challenges & Opportunities for African Education Amid Instability" at the annual Bradford Morse lecture, which takes place at Boston University on April 18. And, thanks to the inspired work of board member and Program Committee chair, Louise Badiane, WARA has submitted a proposal for a roundtable, “US Immigration Reform: Implications for West Africans on Both Sides of the Atlantic,” for the 2013 ASA. As always, our thanks go to Mary Ellen Lane and the staff at CAORC who provide such excellent support to WARA and to the other AORCs, and to the Boston University African Studies Center, our US home-base. Our thanks also go to the US Department of Education and to the Educational and Cultural Affairs bureau of the US State Department for their support of WARA programs.

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In just a few weeks the building presently being erected as an extension to the WARC main structure will be inaugurated. Senegalese senior officials, African diplomats, and US embassy representatives will be attending the ceremony and joining us in celebrating this milestone. The new architectural addition will include a fully equipped 70-seat conference room, two office spaces and two restrooms. By early May, when all the masonry, building and painting works are completed, WARC’s capacity to host seminars and workshops for academics from Africa and overseas will be substantially enhanced. The Center will have been further beautified and rejuvenated and its hosting capacity for programs of member institutions significantly increased. This will prove to be a mean contribution to the Center's capacity to welcome and implement an increased number of much needed income-generating activities. Meanwhile, the staff and steering committee of the DAART project have been making site visits to the DAART fellows at their respective sites: Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo, Guinea-Conakry, & Senegal. The only site left to visit is Cape Verde in late March. The conclusion to be derived from those visits is that most fellows have managed to successfully implement their projects and to realize the objective of consolidating, both administratively and financially, the youth organizations in which they have leadership positions. It is to be also noted that almost all projects included civic awareness and community service components, and have been appropriately integrated to the various activities planned and conducted by the fellows and their teams. Although the implementation of the DAART project has required the full attention of the WARC administration, it has not deflected attention from our many other activities. For several months now, the Center has been operating at an unprecedented pace, hosting an average of one or two events a week, including book presentations, public lectures, and workshops. In this respect, the month of February, Black History Month, was particularly busy at WARC. The various documentaries and films shown and discussed attracted crowds who, ever since, have been asking for more such events, and especially film screenings, at the Center. The above developments are, indeed, felicitous at a time when WARC is being more and more regarded as a major resource institution for research, intellectual, academic and cultural activities in West Africa and the rest of the continent. A number of collaborative initiatives including the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) on African diplomacy and international relations and others, can attest to the intellectual capacity of WARC. We look forward to welcoming WARA members at WARC and to showing you around our new addition!

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News From WARA and WARC Headquarters A Message from AROA Secretary General Dear WARA members, This note is meant to share the new turn in my career and to express my gratitude to this Association which supported me when “times were so hard you could even cut it with a knife,” to speak like my cousins in Mississippi. I benefitted from a WARA travel grant, which allowed me to return to the USA in 2000 and do additional research on my subject. This also gave me the opportunity to meet the Cummings family of New Orleans. At that time, John Cummings, the head of the family and a trial lawyer, had just bought the Whitney plantation and needed a historian to conduct substantial research on the history of this site. He hired me for that purpose and, since then, my findings are being implemented on the site. The Whitney Heritage Plantation Museum will be soon opened to the public and will be dedicated to the interpretation of slavery in Louisiana, a topic so far neglected by most of the old plantations inscribed on the flyers of the local tour operators. My encounter with the West African Research Center dates back to its beginnings, when Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, a historian of slavery in Louisiana, gave the first lecture there. This encounter and its impact on my career is described in the preface of my forthcoming book, Bouki fait Gombo: A History of the Slave Community of Habitation Haydel (Whitney Plantation) Louisiana, 1750-1860 (UNO Press). Professor Hall recounts, “I met Dr. Seck in 1993 in Dakar, Senegal, where I had been invited to give the keynote address at the initiation of the West African Research Center. Dr. Eileen Julien had initiated and founded this Center while she was a Fulbright research scholar there. She had read my book, Africans in Colonial Louisiana: the Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century, which emphasized the heavily Senegalese origins of the slaves brought to Louisiana, especially during the French period (1699-1763). I also spoke at the Ecole Normale Superieure and Ibrahima Seck was in the audience. He asked me for a copy of my speech and published it in the Bulletin of the Association Senegalaise des Professeurs d’Histoire et de Geographie (ASPHG). That was the beginning of a major transformation of consciousness in Senegal as well as in Dr. Seck's career. He was a high school teacher in Dakar at the time. He went back to the University of Dakar and obtained his doctorate in history. He wrote a doctoral dissertation which dealt with the Senegambian influence in Louisiana.”

between Edgard and Wallace, Louisiana. Ambroise Heidel (1702-ca.1770), a German who immigrated to Louisiana with his mother and siblings in 1721, lived on the original land tract as early as 1752. Before that, he was a modest farmer on the east bank on the river with, at one time, a single pig for all livestock. Ambroise became a wealthy landowner engaged in the business of indigo. When he died, twenty slaves were attached to his property. In 1803, the land claim made before the American authorities by Jean Jacques Haydel Sr. (1741-1826), the youngest son of Ambroise Heidel, included his father’s farm. He transitioned the plantation from Indigo to sugar in the early 1800s. In 1820 Jean Jacques Haydel Sr. passed the property to his sons, Marcellin (1788-1839) and Jean Jacques Jr. (1780-1863). After the death of Marcellin Haydel, his widow, Marie Azelie Haydel (1790-1860), bought the plantation and turned it into a huge agro-industrial unit, producing up to 407,000 pounds of sugar during one grinding season. She commissioned Dominici Canova, the author of the ceiling paintings of the Saint-Louis cathedral in New Orleans, to paint the murals and frescos, which are still adorning the interior and exterior of the main house on the plantation. After the Civil War, the plantation was sold to Bradish Johnson, a carpetbagger who named the property after his grandson, Harry Payne Whitney. The Haydel/Whitney Plantation is a genuine landmark built by enslaved Africans and their descendants. As a site of memory and consciousness, the Whitney Heritage Plantation is meant to pay homage to all the slaves who lived on the plantation itself and to all of those who lived elsewhere in the US South. May those who reach this sacred ground meditate profoundly the fate of the forgotten ones who gave to Louisiana most of its unique culture.

This dissertation and most of my later work was written at the West African Research Center where I had an office from 1999 to December 2012. I miss that office, although I appreciate the new one I am occupying now in New Orleans as the director of the Whitney Heritage Plantation Museum. To finish, please share with me the summary of the history of the plantation. I hope to see y’all there soon.

Dr. Ibrahima Seck Director of the Whitney Heritage Plantation Museum St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana Office located at 416 Gravier St., New Orleans, LA

The Haydel Plantation, now referred to as The Whitney Plantation, is located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, on the historic River Road in St. John the Baptist Parish,


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Update on Mali A United Nations Operation in Mali: A Doctrinal Shift? In his November 2012 report to the Security Council on the situation in Mali, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General stressed that the organization was not ‘best suited’ to undertake counter-terrorism and offensive military operations in northern Mali. He called for international partners to play such a role. However, in early February 2013, in the aftermath of the French military operation code-named ‘Serval’, the UN Security Council (UNSC) was holding consultations on the feasibility of a UN operation in Mali that would transition from the African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFSIMA) authorized under its resolution 2085 of 20 December 2012. This piece provides a brief analysis of the processes and interactions that led to the French intervention, as well as the prevailing situation on the ground, which, it is argued, is not conducive to a classical UN peacekeeping operation. Finally, the article looks at options available to the UN and concludes that any meaningful UN involvement would entail a doctrinal shift regarding the way in which the organization interacts with regional arrangements or the type of operations it is prepared to embark upon in the face of new threats to international peace and security.

developed with the Malian authorities. On the other hand, the UN did not fully endorse the AU and ECOWAS request for the deployment and operations of AFISMA. It authorized the mission under very stringent conditions and failed to provide a financial and logistical support package funded through assessed contributions. In effect, resolution 2085 dashed any hope of a speedy deployment of AFISMA and highlighted once more the need for African organizations to find ways of funding their operations if they are to retain political ownership and leadership. To some extent, the international community acted as if the situation on the ground would remain frozen until it managed to articulate a coherent response. Clearly this assumption was based on a wrong assessment of the nature of the groups in northern Mali, the balance of forces among them and their ultimate objectives. While some in the international community had hopes that through negotiations, it would be possible to detach armed Malian groups from foreign terrorist and criminal networks, the armed actors in the north appear to have engaged in the negotiation to buy time and expand their presence on the ground.

It is against this background that the northern armed groups Following the outbreak of a secessionist rebellion in January launched an attack on the city of Konna, in the region of Mopti, 2012, the March 2012 coup d’Etat and the subsequent on 10 January, swiftly overrunning the Malian army’s positions. occupation of the northern part of the country by a mixture of Given the unpreparedness of both the Malian army and armed, terrorist and criminal groups, international response AFISMA, this attack triggered was rather slow, and lacked the French military coherence. In line with their intervention code named normative and classical ‘Serval’ at the request of the approach to crisis management, The UN authorized the mission Malian authorities. France, the international actors called under very stringent conditions… which until then, had only for the restoration of planned to support an Africanconstitutional order, dialogue and highlighted once more the led operation through technical with so-called Malian armed advice, logistics and groups willing to negotiate need for African organizations to funding, ended up undertaking under certain conditions and, find ways of funding their a major military intervention ultimately, a military operation that first blocked the spearheaded by the Malian army operations if they are to retain southbound advance of the with support from the region political ownership and armed groups and, and the larger international subsequently, reclaimed control community to dismantle the leadership. of the major cities in the north. terrorist and criminal networks. Yet, these initiatives yielded few tangible results, perhaps because they failed to address the underlying political and security governance issues that led to the collapse of the Malian state. On the one hand, even though it relinquished power to an interim president, the military junta retained substantial influence, expressing strong reservations against any foreign military intervention, particularly the deployment of troops in Bamako to protect the transitional institutions as initially envisaged by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In October 2012, the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS managed to create some consensus on the way forward through their strategic concept for the resolution of the crises in Mali, which facilitated the subsequent adoption of a harmonized concept of operations for AFISMA, jointly

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The French intervention, which so far enjoys wide popular support in Mali, induced a change in the way both the Malian authorities and their partners sequenced their military response. Initially, the plan was first to build the capacity of the Malian army with the help of the European Union (EU) to enable it to play the lead role in regaining control of the North; second, to progressively deploy AFISMA in support of the Malian army; and, finally, to launch an offensive military operation with the Malian army ultimately taking over from foreign forces. The January military developments reversed this order. By then the EU training mission (EU-TM) had not yet started and AFISMA was still struggling to finalize its planning documents, generate forces and mobilize sufficient resources for its deployment and operations.

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Update on Mali United Nations Operation in Mali (continued from page 6) In order to consolidate the gains made on the ground and given France’s expressed desire to quickly withdraw or at least multilateralize its engagement, the international actors have articulated a three-fold , overlapping response: first, to expedite the deployment of AFISMA, which is currently underway; second, to facilitate the full operationalization of the EUTM, with the required adjustments, including in-field training; and third, to re-hat AFISMA to become a UN operation. While the two first steps were initially planned, the last one was never seriously contemplated. There seems now to be a general support among the Security Council members for the idea of a transition from AFISMA to a UN operation, however, important issues are yet to be addressed, most importantly, whether conditions on the ground are conducive to the deployment of a peacekeeping operations, as peacekeepers are not war fighters. Indeed, given the volatility of the situation on the ground, the peacekeeping operation could find itself battling an insurgency. In Malian popular and official circles, there are doubts about the appropriateness of a UN led operation, especially if it was to be framed as a peacekeeping operation, with many wondering which peace is there to be kept and between whom. It would take the UN a serious doctrinal shift to deploy under such conditions, as UN peacekeeping operations are traditionally guided by three fundamental principles: consent of the parties, impartiality and non-use of force except in self-defense and defense of the mandate. In light of the above, two options might considered. The first one would be to prioritize support to AFISMA, which would be expected to operate along the same line as the AU Mission in

Somalia (AMISOM). This peace support operation acts as a peace enforcer, including through counter insurgency, and accepts to sustain significant casualties, with the aim of creating conditions for the emergence of peace and the subsequent deployment of a classic multidimensional UN peacekeeping operation. Under this scenario, predictable, flexible and sustainable support would have to be provided to AFISMA. The other option would be to give to the envisaged UN operation a peace enforcement mandate, and ensure that it is indeed ready to use force beyond the usual UN guiding principles. In conclusion, and regardless of the option chosen, the situation in Mali highlights once more the need for greater flexibility and creativity on the side of the UN if it is to successfully address the changing nature of the threats to peace and security. Only through such adjustments and closer partnership with regional organizations, can the world body further collective security and remain relevant to the security needs of states and peoples caught in cycles of violence. Dr. Lori-Anne Theroux-Benoni, Institute for Security, Dakar Office [email protected] February 14, 2013

Analyzing Public Attitudes Toward Waste Management The willingness to contribute to the cost of waste management, especially in terms of payment, is a very good working measure for analyzing public attitudes towards solid waste management. The ineffectiveness of waste management by Buea Council (Buea, Cameroon) leads to the dumping of waste in drainage gullies, streams, open lots and fields. These unsanitary conditions are greatly felt by poor metropolitan communities located next to garbage-filled gullies and official council dumping sites. The poor rating is the outcome of ineffective and inefficient waste management. Although the Council attributes inefficient management of waste to limited financial resources, the results of this research show that the populace would prefer to pay for waste management services than to live in a dirty environment. Citizens’ participation and raising awareness is vital in taking the message to grass root levels. From our research, it is clear that where a reliable service can be guaranteed, communities are willing to pay for it. Asi Eugene Ndum (former WARC Travel Grantee) Ph.D. Candidate, Brandenburg Univ. of Technology – Cottbus, Germany [email protected] West African Research Association

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Editorial Arab Racism Invades Mali By Fallou Ngom & Christopher Wise Most U.S. based analyses of what is currently taking place in Northern Mali reveal a startling ignorance of African history, especially the history of Islam in West Africa. They also demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of West African society, particularly in the Sahel zone, which is the epicenter of this conflict. What is missing from nearly every analysis of the conflict in Mali is any reference to the long history of Arab racism and imperialism in the region. In the U.S. media, the obsession with Al Qaeda and 9/11 trumps every political consideration regarding the Islamic world. This simplistic narrative stokes fears in the U.S. populace about Islamic terrorism and fails to take into account the context of this recent “jihad” in Mali, which has occurred within an extremely ancient black African society. In the Sahel zone, Islam has long been “Ajamized” (i.e. Africanized or assimilated into local cultural systems). This is why the invasion and occupation of Northern Mali amounts to an effort to impose Arab imperialism and racism upon a black African region. Pundits in the U.S. like to emphasize that Mali is a poor country with little to offer the world. However, they have failed to consider the extraordinarily rich and ancient history of Mali’s civilization. It is not coincidental that the first and last acts of the invaders were to destroy hundreds of the ancient manuscripts of Timbuktu and the shrines of its most important saints. These were racist acts intended to show Ansar Dine’s contempt for black culture. While obviously not all Arabs are racist, it is undeniable that Arab racism permeates all layers of Arab societies and impacts nearly every black-Arab interrelation. Yet, almost nowhere in current media accounts are the facts of Arab racism and imperialism raised, perhaps from fear of being politically incorrect. Though many Arab scholars are often quick to criticize the West for its history of racism and imperialism, they deny the pervasive and centuries-old racism that exists in their own societies, and that was widely exported throughout the Islamic world. In the name of Muslim solidarity, discussions of Arab racism are tacitly discouraged. Instead, racism is depicted as an exclusive Euro-Christian problem. As a result, the problem of Arab racism against black Africans is almost never addressed.

media. An article entitled “Etre Noir au Maroc” (“Being Black in Morocco”), published in Seneweb: Le Sénégal dans le Web on May 21, 2012, illustrates the ugly face of Arab racism against black people. It recounts the case of a male Senegalese student in Morocco who gave alms to a female Arab beggar. The beggar was so shocked by this act of generosity that she raised her hands toward Allah and asked what she had ever done to deserve to be brought so low, receiving alms from a black man, the son of a slave. A headline “Le Peril Noir” (“The Black Peril”) in the magazine MarocHebdo, Number 998, published in November 2012, similarly reflects the unchallenged racism against black people that exists in the Muslim world. African-Americans in the U.S. are often unaware of the discrimination that exists against black Africans because as African Americans they are treated differently in Arab lands. They are treated differently, not because of their race, but from fear of reprisals from the U.S. Seldom do African-Americans ask themselves why black Africans, whether they are Muslims or not, prefer to live in Western countries rather than in Arab lands, where no laws and protection exist for them and none are presently envisioned. In Mauritania, for instance, a quarter of a million black Africans remain enslaved, despite the fact that slavery was formally abolished in 1980. Though analysts in the U.S. may still be oblivious to the terrible fact of Arab racism, Sub-Saharan Africans do not enjoy this luxury. Now more than ever, the black African nations south of the Sahara have awoken to the hypocrisy of the Arab world. In West Africa, it has become painfully clear that not a single Arab nation lifted a finger to help expel the invading marauders from the north, with the exception of Algeria. However, Algeria acted only after the French intervention had forced their hand. Formerly, West Africa had looked to Algeria as a kind of benevolent sponsor, one that might come to their assistance in time of need. This illusion has been irrevocably shattered. The silent complicity of the Arab nations regarding the situation in Mali has loudly reverberated throughout “black” Africa. Egypt’s president has even condemned the French liberation of Mali, for President Morsi knows very well that this conflict is not really about Islam. It’s about furthering Arab interests and domination across the continent.

Whereas Arab nations equate Islamization with Arabization, the vast majority of black Africans do not. Black Africans may embrace Islam as a matter of religious faith, but they reject any Arabization ideology requiring them to abandon their own African identities. For they know very well that black Africa has its own rich history of Muslim saints, marabouts, and scholars.

Not so long ago, the people of West Africa had very little love for the French. Many black Africans frankly disliked the French as their former colonizers and oppressors. Now, Malians and other West Africans gladly welcome the French. For, it is clear to all that the French are helping to rid a black African nation that merely happens to be Muslim of a racist and foreign occupation propounded by the Arabization ideology that virtually all Arab nations and institutions support, overtly or covertly.

Reports on hate crimes against black peoples across the Muslim world abound, including during the pilgrimage to Mecca. For the most part, such reports are ignored in Western

In the meantime, the U.S. government continues to drag its feet in fear of getting pulled into yet another Islamist conflict, or – what is more likely – in fear of offending Arabist states seeking

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Editorial (continued from page 8) to extend their hegemony in a culture and society that is not their own. The U.S. government may also tread lightly for fear of offending rich Arab oil states that are its oldest allies in the Middle East, the State of Israel notwithstanding. While it is true that some in the region have been indoctrinated into the racist ideology of the Ansar Dine and the Mojwa, such individuals are widely perceived as brainwashed fringe elements. The vast majority of West Africans understand very well that foreign Islamists promote a chauvinist belief system that conflates Arab culture with the religion of Islam. This belief system is abhorrent to most in the region (including concerned Arab scholars) because it grants a place of special privilege to Arabs within Islam. An inevitable result of the Arabist occupation of Northern Mali is that a stronger black African Union will surely result, as those living in the region now realize that a strong North-South alliance is a delusion. Now that the Arab nations have collectively turned their backs on the black Muslim world, historically “black” nations will have to forge closer alliances to better protect themselves in the future. In the meantime, the U.S. government enjoys a rare opportunity to show its strong support of sub-Saharan African peoples. All over the continent, black African peoples now look to Mali and weigh the responses of the world’s nations. There will surely be ripple effects across the continent, once Ansar Dine and Mojwa are expelled. The hypocrisy of the Arab nations has made itself known throughout Africa. Now, the West must also awaken to the fact of Arab racism and begin to more soberly evaluate this conflict, eschewing simplistic narratives about Al Qaeda, 9/11, and past U.S. foreign policy in North Africa and the Middle East. One may be critical of the U.S. militarization of the region while nonetheless recognizing that the foreign occupation of Mali should not be tolerated, and that the Islamists who swept into Gao and Timbuktu are racist criminals. Fallou Ngom (left) is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the African Languages Program at Boston University. Christopher Wise (right) is Professor of English at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.

WARA 2013 Grantees

Thanks to members of the Travel Grant Review committee, to WARA grants review committee, and to Adama Diouf, Beth Restrick, Diane Ryan, and Emilie Songolo who served on the review committee for the WARC Library Fellowship. Pre-Doctoral Fellows Karl J. Haas (Ethnomusicology, Boston University) Time and Space, Music and Matter: A Musical Ethnography of the Kambonsi of Northern Ghana Elyan Jeannine Hill (World Arts and Cultures, UCLA) Mami Wata, Diaspora and Circum-Atlantic Gestural Histories Katherine Seto (Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley) Fish Wars: Investigating Linkages between Coastal Fisheries Resource Scarcity and Conflict in West Africa Paul Thissen (Political Science, UC Berkeley) Informal order: The importance of traditional elites in Chad's governance Post-Doctoral Fellows Devin Bryson (Modern Languages, Illinois College) Fed Up: Creating a New Type of Senegal Through Literature and the Arts Trevor Getz (History, San Francisco State University) History and its alternatives in Ghana Lorelle Semley (History, College of the Holy Cross) Free and French: The Challenge of Black Citizenship to Empire


Diaspora Intern Julia Neal (History of Art & Architecture, Boston University) Foundation for Contemporary Art-Ghana WARC Library Fellow: Julia Keiser (Queens College, NY ) WARA Residency Fellows: Lesley University, to host Awang Ollong Kingsly, of the University of Bamenda Boston University , to host Alphonse Raphaël Ndiaye, of the Foundation Leopold Senghor Fall 2012 WARC Travel Grantees Nathaniel Dede- Bamfo (Texas State University at San Marcos) Modeling Spatial Accessibility and potential new routes in the Afram Plains, Ghana” Vodjo Nicodeme Fassinou Hotegni (Universite Abomey-Calavi) Using agronomic and logistic tools to improve the synchronisation, quality and uniformity of pineapple in Benin produced for local and international market “Theresa Owusu-Danso (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) Microfinance, Household Indebtedness and Gender Inequality”

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From Our Fellows Architecture and Technical Expertise in French West Africa: A View from the Archives From September 3rd to October 26th, 2012, I had the opportunity to visit Dakar as a WARA Pre-Doctoral fellow. The purpose of my trip was to conduct archival research towards my dissertation at the Senegalese national archives. After World War II, new actors were introduced to architectural design and implementation in French West Africa that helped Yetunde’s table at the tackle the climatic constraints of National Archives Annex the past. Research agencies reading room documented specific conditions and tested out solutions, advisory committees devised implementation strategies, and consultants relayed the ensuing advances to architects and urban planners at work there. Together, the actors formed an effective techno-political complex between 1945 and 1975, wrapping the rushed development efforts of the period with the aura if not actual actuality of technical expertise. My dissertation tracks the emergence of this technical expertise chronologically over the three decades noted through the respective case-studies of expert, artifact, and fact. The first decade (1945-55) centers on the French architect Jean-Henri Calsat, who emerged as an “expert” of tropical architecture through dual roles as master planner of African cities like Douala, Cameroun and advisory committee member for government agencies like CSTB (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Batiment) and BCEOM (Bureau Central d’Equipement du Batiment). The second decade (195565) follows the implementation of a technological “artifact,” the aluminum roof-umbrella proposed by French research and design ensemble ATEA-SETAP as the cornerstone to their 1960 master plan for Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, commissioned by SCET (Societe Central d’Equipement du Territoire). The third decade (1965-75) likewise tracks the construction of scientific “fact” through the urban research of SMUH (Secretariat des Missions d’Urbanisme et d’Habitat) and its successive outgrowths, MFU (Mission Française d’Urbanisme) and BEAU (Bureau d’Etudes et Amenagements Urbaine) in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa. Though Dakar does not feature explicitly in any of these casestudies, the Senegalese national archives documenting the French West Africa high commission once located there would be useful to my dissertation in other ways. Spanning the length of the federation’s existence, from its 1895 establishment to the 1960 independence of its remaining territories, the archives were certainly an important reference for the first two decades covered in the dissertation even if they were not unique. French colonial bureaucracy demanded that every directive be meticulously documented: first, at the point of origin in the metropole; then, at high commissions such as Dakar where it was administered regionally; and finally, at specific territories within a region where it was implemented. This first point of documentation is represented by the French West African records of the overseas ministry now kept at the French national archives in Aix-en-Provence and, for the most part, duplicating those in Dakar. The appeal of the Senegalese

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national archives over any in France, however, was the closer view it offers of the implementation process. Though implementation sites addressed in the dissertation’s casestudies—Douala, Abidjan, and Kinshasa—offer the closest views of all, the national archives where they reside are often less accessible. My objective in conducting archival research at the Senegalese national archives was therefore not only to follow up on leads I had already identified from prior research but also to identify new leads I could follow up at such national archives as the means become available. One such lead I stumbled upon at the French national archives in Aix-en-Provence was the correspondence between public works officials within the overseas ministry and the government agencies, CSTB and BCEOM, to be addressed in my first case-study. Besides this correspondence, I came across general reports of the agencies’ activities throughout the French overseas empire, minutes of their advisory committee meetings, and even reference literature from analogous British agencies translated into French. What I could not find was documentation on specific architectural and urban planning projects in French West Africa on which these agencies had participated—in other words, how their research of tropical building techniques, materials, and the like, had translated into actual projects. At the Senegalese national archives, I would therefore focus on the 4P series, on buildings and urbanism in French West Africa, within whose online inventory I had already identified several promising folders even before arriving in Dakar. Unfortunately, the most promising of these folders—those documenting missions the French architect Calsat had undertaken for BCEOM—were missing from the archives. Rather than entire folders dedicated to CSTB or BCEOM activities, I had more luck uncovering such activities (and those of other actors within the postwar techno-political complex) by going through the archive’s folders on specific architectural and urban planning projects. I found out from the folders on the Palais de Justice in Abidjan that another architectural firm took over the building’s construction even though Calsat won the design competition, and from another folder that he was again dismissed from overseeing the urban plan of Cotonou. Both discoveries lead me to question the extent of Calsat’s expertise in tropical architecture, and open up new lines of inquiry I hope to investigate further at the Ivorian and Beninoise national archives next year. I am grateful to WARA, without whose generous sponsorship my research at the Senegalese national archives would have been briefer and less thorough. I would also like to extend my thanks to Marianne Yade and Atoumane Mbaye at WARC, who helped me gain access to the Annex where the 4P series is located.

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Yetunde Olaiya WARA 2012 Pre-doctoral fellow School of Architecture Princeton University [email protected]


From Our Fellows The Community-Based Health Planning and Services Initiative: The Role of Community Involvement in the Skilled Delivery Program in Rural Northern Ghana I received financial support from WARA to conduct a study on the role of communities in promoting the skilled delivery program in the context of the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Initiative. I conducted in-depth interviews with community stakeholders such as chiefs, elders, traditional birth attendants (TBAs), community volunteers, and women leaders. I also interviewed Community Health Officer Midwives (CHO-midwives) working in rural areas. In Ghana, tragically between 1,400 and 3,900 women and girls die each year due to pregnancy-related problems and most of these deaths occur in the period from late pregnancy through to 48 hours after delivery.1 Maternal deaths in rural Ghana is higher than in urban settings. Skilled care at birth has been shown to be effective and the most important way to reduce maternal deaths and disabilities in the world.2 In Ghana, only half of births are supervised by skilled personnel, which is lower than other sub-Saharan African countries such as Namibia where 7 out of 10 births are attended by skilled personnel.3 Skilled attendants at birth could only be increased if communities are actively involved in promoting skilled delivery services in rural areas. The CHPS program provides an example of an innovative program to improve maternal health in Ghana. CHPS was established in 2000 to improve access and quality of health care and family planning services in all the districts of Ghana. 4 Communities collaborate with the health sector in areas such as provision of land and labor for building CHPS compounds. Community volunteers participate in health service delivery. 4 In the Upper East Region, CHO-midwives partner with community volunteers and traditional birth attendants (TBAs) to provide additional health services that include maternity care to rural women in CHPS zones. We asked community stakeholders whether they were aware of the CHPS program in the centers and what their roles were in promoting the program in rural communities. Community leaders knew about the CHPS program and they were in close consultations with health professionals in the planning and construction of Community Health Compounds (CHCs). They also helped to implement the program and they often sought skilled delivery care and treatment for minor ailments from the health professionals. Community volunteers and TBAs refer or accompany pregnant women to CHO-midwives for skilled delivery services. They also provide health education to pregnant women and nursing mothers in rural communities. Traditional leaders such as chiefs and elders donated land and logistics for constructing CHCs, organized community members for communal labor. Traditional leaders also offer health education to women to seek skilled care during birth. The chiefs also enacted bylaws to punish women and their families who refuse to deliver in health facilities.


The District Health Administration has collaborated with the District Assembly for electrification/water source for CHCs without lights and water. They also built some of the CHCs and assisted in acquiring land and other logistics such as tipper trucks to carry sand, stones, equipment and logistics for the building. Occasionally, the assembly members assisted in organizing the communities for health programs. Community stakeholders emphasized that a huge benefit from the skilled delivery program was that women no longer suffer complications or die from pregnancy related causes. Notwithstanding the successes, the skilled delivery program is still confronted with many challenges that include long distances and lack of transport to carry pregnant women to health facilities. Maternal mortality is a grave burden in Ghana. Skilled care at birth is shown to be effective and the most important way to reduce maternal deaths and disabilities. Community participation is an important component of the skilled delivery program in rural settings in Ghana. The Ghana Health Service should continue to collaborate with communities to promote skilled delivery care in rural areas to ensure the safety of women during delivery. This partnership will ensure that women have healthy pregnancies and births and will save thousands of mothers’ lives. Evelyn Sakeah WARC Travel Grantee Boston University School of Public Health [email protected] References 1Maternal and Neonatal Program Index: A Tool for Maternal Health Advocates. Available at URL Library: http://www.policyproject.com/pubs/MNPI/ Ghana_MNPI.pdf 2Graham J. Wendy, Bell S. Jacqueline and Bullough: Can Skilled Attendance at delivery reduce maternal mortality in developing countries: Studies in Health Services Organization &P,17,2001 97 3World Health Organization. “Proportion of births attended by a skilled health worker – 2008 updates.” Geneva: Available at URL Library: http:// www.who.int/reproductive_health/ global_monitoring/data.html, accessed 14 August 2008. 4Nyonator K. Frank, Awoonor-Williams J. Koku, Jones C. Tanya and Miller A. Robert. “The Ghana CommunityBased Health Planning and Service Initiative for scaling up service delivery innovation”. 2005. Health Policy and Planning; 20 (1) 25-34. Oxford U. Press.

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From Our Fellows Violence in African-American Fiction: A Comparative Study of Wright’s Native Son and Billy by Albert French En 1938 Wright publiait Uncle Tom’s Children comme pour repondre à Hàrriet Beecher Stowe qui se lamentait sur le sort des Noirs avec son ouvrage Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Là reàction de Wright s’expliquàit par la vacuite des larmoiements de Stowe. Il fallait s’attaquer au systeme d’exploitation et d’esclavage au lieu d’en condamner les consequences. Native Son paru en 1940 est le produit d’un tel engagement. L’auteur avertit que la reaction violente des Noirs, chose qu’on pourrait nommer contreviolence, resulte d’un determinisme socioeconomique et politique et donc d’un probleme structurel qu’on ne peut juguler qu’en favorisant un partage equilibree de ce que la societe americaine offre et qui se trouve entre les mains d’une frange de la population a cause de la preference raciale qu’opere la culture dominante. Il n’y aurait pas d’Uncle Tom s’il n’y avait pas d’esclavage et de Bigger Thomas s’il n’y avait pas de segregation et de discrimination raciales. En 1994, un natif de Pittsburgh, Pennsylvanie, et de surcroit veteran de la guerre du Vietnam se pose les memes questions que Wright. La violence systematique et systemique contre le Noir refait surface a travers le systeme penitencier qui regorge de plus de la moitie des jeunes noirs qui se livrent a la violence entre noirs et d’autres formes de criminalites. Mais la litterature de French est une condamnation de la violence judiciaire contre la jeunesse noire. Les questions essentielles que l’on est en droit de se poser sont comme suit : Qu’est-ce qui a change dans la condition des Noirs depuis la proclamation de la fin de l’esclavage? Qu’est-ce qui peut bien legitimer les ecrits s’inspirant de la violence contre les Noirs apres tant d’annees? La maitrise, plus ou moins nuancee, de la sphere politique americaine par un Noir change-t-il les donnees au point de suggerer que le Noir n’est plus un probleme aux Etats-Unis (the Black issue)? Ce sont les questions qui guident l’etude comparatiste que nous comptons faire sur des epoques et des auteurs afro-americains sur la problematique de la violence aux Etats-Unis. Pour apporter des reponses a ces questions, nous usons des approches pluridisciplinaires qui font le fort du comparatisme nord-americain en particulier, et de la litterature comparee en general. En effet, le comparatisme c’est ce que disait Descartes en 1684 dans Regulae ad directionem ingenii : « Ce n'est que par une comparaison que nous connaissons precisement la verite. [. . .] Toute connaissance qui ne s'obtient pas par l'intuition simple et pure d'une chose isolee, s'obtient par la comparaison de deux ou plusieurs choses entre elles. Et presque tout le travail de la raison humaine consiste sans doute a rendre cette operation possible ». Ces questions ne peuvent mieux se repondre qu’en effectuant des recherches bien guidees, mais aussi menees dans un cadre aussi adequat qu’un departement dont l’axe de recherche fondamental est la question des Noirs, la documentation de leurs accomplissements et de leurs peines. C’est ce cadre qu’a pu etre Ohio State en general et son departement d’Etudes afro-americaine et africaine grace a la West African Research Association (WARA) dont la mission principale est de promouvoir la recherche et l’echange culturel entre les chercheurs ouest-africains et ceux des institutions academiques americaines. Développement-Cadres de recherche Le departement des Etudes afro-americaines et africaine a Ohio State University qui est bien heteroclite en expertise et ressources humaines a bien recu notre projet pour lui donner un regard valorisant. De plus,

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le responsable scientifique et chef du departement, Dr. Newsom avec qui j’ai eu l’insigne honneur de travailler est specialiste des litteratures afro-americaine et africaines, des Noirs dans les media parmi tant d’autres, et Dr. Thiam, comparatiste et specialiste des Etudes afro-americaines, nous ont facilite les entrees dans les bases de donnees en etudes (afro-)americaines. Une orientation guidee d’abord au Center for African Studies (Centre d’Etudes africaines), un de nos partenaires pratiquement au meme titre que le departement AAAS, aux bibliotheques des arts et a la Thompson Library nous ont permis de prendre connaissance du cadre institutionnel et de recherche a OSU. Cela nous amenera decouvrir les es ressources inestimables dans notre universite d’accueil, et nous a finalement conduit a ebaucher un pan crucial de notre recherche. Certes, un mois de recherche peut paraitre insignifiant. Mais la magnitude des donnees qui ont ete offertes, l’espace qui dispose a faire des recherches plus sainement et proprement sont des faits qui ont fait avancer nos recherches et qui ont conduit a des conclusions preliminaires par rapport a nos questions de recherche initiales. Aussi, les personnes que nous avons rencontrees ont ete tout aussi d’une incomparable disponibilite et d’un accueil inoubliable que nous ne saurions etre prets a oublier OSU dans son ensemble. Thompson Library et la Fine Arts Library (Bibliothèque des Fine Arts) Notre recherche ne serait aisee en cette periode ou les cours battent leur plein donne une allure d’impossibilite d’effectuer les travaux tant les etudiants et les chercheurs abondent dans la bibliotheque. Cependant, c’est bien ce qui donne l’engouement dans la recherche. A Thompson Library, ce cadre bien calme aussi bien pour les enseignants et chercheurs que pour les etudiants, et a meme de faciliter la reflexion saine, nous avons eu la possibilite d’utiliser les ressources livresques qui ont etanche notre curiosite de comparatiste. Grace aux livres sur la litterature comparee, les etudes africaines et afro-americaines, nous avons complete les donnees que nous avions collectees en Cote d’Ivoire. Stage de recherche-Objectifs Nos objectifs etaient bien clairs : faire davantage de recherche sur la violence dans les Etudes afro-americaines (histoire, litteratures et cultures), avoir une idee des apprehensions et comprehensions des chercheurs noirs sur la thematique de la violence, et finalement situer la contribution africaine a travers une approche comparatiste, a la recherche globale sur la violence aux Etats-Unis. De plus, il s’agissait de bien profiter de l’opportunite que WARA nous avait offerte pour donner vie a un projet qui n’avait que trop durer dans les fonds de notre tete. La periode septembre a octobre 2012 nous aura permis de regrouper des donnees, de les traiter selon leur pertinence, et enfin de monter un travail qui a donne corps a notre reflexion que le bilan enonce traduit. Bilan Notre sejour americain nous a permis de reflechir sur les donnees que nous avons assemblees dans notre universite d’origine de Cote d’Ivoire et a OSU. Etant de formation comparatiste, notre etude s’est eloignee de toute astreinte au

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From Our Fellows Exploring the Fresh Pineapple Export Chains in Ghana Introduction My PhD research is aimed at improving the quality of pineapple produced in Benin. Currently, less than 2% of the pineapple produced in Benin is exported. Recent FAO data showed that in Ghana more than 13% of the produced pineapple is exported. An analysis of the fresh pineapple supply chains in Benin showed that the main problems are linked to the heterogeneity of the product, the lack of training in pineapple production practices, lack of suitable storage conditions at the wholesalers’ and processors’ level, lack of airconditioned transport to outlets, and unavailability of boxes for exporting fresh pineapples. Given the success of Ghanaian pineapple export production, research on the fresh pineapple supply chains in Ghana may reveal how and why Ghana is doing so well. As a recipient of a WARC Travel Grant, I travelled to Ghana from February 18 to March 22, 2013 to conduct research on Ghanaian fresh pineapple supply chains.

due to its short shelf life. Queen Victoria was produced mainly for the local market. Later in 2004, a new cultivar, MD2, was developed in Costa Rica. It was promoted for its sweetness, low acidity, and natural ripening and soon captured about 70% of the European market, making it difficult to compete. A major challenge for SPEG was to acquire MD2 planting material and to train pineapple producers in its production. Many companies went out of business because of the high cost of MD2 production, which is estimated to be 6 to 7 times the cost of producing Smooth Cayenne. To address this situation, the Ghanaian government helped those remaining companies by providing them with financial support, allowing them to import MD2 planting material. Currently, MD2 is the most produced and exported pineapple (by sea) followed by Smooth Cayenne and Sugarloaf.

Pineapple cultivation practices All companies were producing MD2 and Smooth Cayenne, with MD2 representing over 80% of production. MD2 is exported by sea, while Smooth Cayenne is exported by air. Our focus is on the cultivation of MD2. The cultivation practices for MD2 were basically the same across companies. At planting time, planting materials used are sourced from previously harvested fields, which have been kept for at least one year to allow the production and collection of planting material—mainly the suckers. Once harvested, the planting materials are deposited on the mother plants for two days to allow drying of the basal part. This eliminates bacteria and fungi which might be located at the basal part of the planting Trend in the percentage of fresh pineapple exported by sea materials. After two days, the and by air from 1994 to 2011. Source: Data from SPEG 2013 Preliminary findings planting materials are collected and Before the 1980’s, pineapple in Ghana sorted by weight. Those weighing more than 600g are cut to was grown few producers. And was exported by air. In midallow more uniformity in the crop development after planting 1980’s the Ghanaian government initiated a major support to and to avoid natural flowering. boost pineapple production and to encourage pineapple exporters through the Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC). At planting time, the material is planted on beds of two The government provided support to selected producers in the alternating rows and covered with plastic to control weeds and form of inputs and machinery. In the 1990’s, the European reduce water loss. The plants are spaced at 25 cm, with, 40cm market (the largest of Ghana’s pineapple buyers), started between the lines, and 80-100 cm between the beds. One month receiving sea-freighted fruits using dedicated ships and container after planting, the application of fertilizers begins. These include lines from other countries such as Costa Rica, exhibiting lower urea, magnesium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, phosphate mono cost and better quality. European customers began to choose sea ammonium, calcium nitrate, calcium chloride, and potassium freighted pineapple exports over those arriving by air; chloride. We were unable to get the information on the rate and consequently, Ghana had to change its mode of operation. This time of each fertilizer application, as such information was lead to the creation of the sea freight pineapple exporters of considered confidential. We did learn that growers applied Ghana (SPEG) in 1994. In order to supply fresh pineapple on a potassium-based fertilizers two weeks after flower induction. weekly basis, SPEG partnered with a company in France that was They stated that such practice increases the firmness, improves picking up bananas from Cameroun to Cote d’Ivoire; so it was a the taste of the fruit and also the shelf-life. Nine months after simple matter to add Ghana, which is in between, thus facilitating planting, the flower is induced by means of either carbide of the transport of Ghanaian pineapple to Europe. The number of calcium (applied once) or ethylene combined with actif carbon in pineapple exporters in Ghana expanded considerably; the water (applied twice at two-day intervals). The criteria used to volume of pineapple exported by sea from Ghana started induce flowering are mainly the age of the crop (generally 9 increasing in 1994. months after planting) and the desired harvest time. 130-135 The main pineapple cultivars being produced were Smooth Cayenne, Sugarloaf and Queen Victoria. Smooth Cayenne was exported by sea and air, but Sugarloaf was exported by air only continued on page 14 Objectives and research activities Once in Ghana, I went to the ministry of Food and Agriculture. There I obtained contacts for the main drivers of the fresh pineapple export chain. I was able to visit Milani Farms, Chartered Impex farms, Gold Coast fruit farms, and Bomarts farms. These four companies were selected based on the a number of criteria. All are members of the sea freight pineapple exporters of Ghana (SPEG), an institution also visited in the course of this research. SPEG brings together pineapple exporters and ensures that only pineapple of the highest quality is exported from Ghana. Finally, we made a visit to the Fruit Terminal company located at Tema Port.


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From Our Fellows Violence in African-American Fiction (continued from page 12) cloisonnement epistemique perçu comme source d’inhibition. En revanche, nous avons privilegie l’interdisciplinarite, l’interculturalite, et la multiculturalite qui sont le gage d’une etude qui s’affiche a l’image de notre monde en constante fluctuation identitaire. C’est pourquoi notre recherche s’est appuyee sur des culturelles et litteraires qui nivellent les barrieres erigees entre les peuples. Aussi, travailler sur les Afro-americains en ce qu’ils partagent litterairement avec l’Afrique noire, nous a permis d’apprehender des points de convergence et des differences qui demontrent la pluralite dans la difference et donc la richesse intra-communautaire mais aussi inter-populaire. La violence est dite etre a l’origine de la litterature africaine aussi bien francophone qu’anglophone. Notre travail final sera le lieu de bien demontrer ces points de convergence et de difference. Nous voulions saisir l’opportunite que WARA nous offre, en tant que chercheurs, d’etre mobiles et mentalement agiles pour appuyer les initiatives que prend cette noble organisation et sans oublier de remercier personnes qui lui permettent d’etre operationnelle et efficace. Notre sejour americain visait a decouvrir un espace culturel et scientifique autre que celui nous avions presque toujours eu l’occasion de connaître. WARA et OSU nous ont surement aides dans ce sens. Scientifiquement, nous avons atteint les objectifs que nous nous etions fixes, a savoir reperer et avoir acces a un cadre de reflexion adequate pour les etudes comparees et culturelles et la production d’un travail (contribution d’article tiree du projet global) a meme d’etre publie. En effet, le projet « Violence in African-American Fiction: A Comparative Study of Wright’s Native Son ànd Billy by Albert French » a donne forme a un article qui a ete accepte pour etre publie sous le titre de « French’s Billy ànd Wright’s “Big Boy Leàves Home”: Themàtic Congruence and Difference ». C’est un accomplissement qui conduira au travail de finition de notre livre sur la violence dont nous comptons partager les conclusions avec la communaute scientifique d’Afrique et du monde sous peu. Conclusion Ce qui se doit d’etre retenu est la conclusion que notre sejour americain grace a WARA a contribue dans un premier temps a la recherche plurielle et approfondie. Une fois de plus, WARA nous aura permis de continuer notre etude sur la violence dans la litterature afro-americaine, un engagement que nous entretenons depuis nos premieres annees de recherche universitaire. La publication d’articles et de livres sur la question de la violence a travers une perspective comparatiste sera possible grace a notre sejour americain et, partant, grace a la bourse que WARA a bien voulu nous octroyer.

Siendou Konate WARA Resident Fellow at Ohio State University Literature Department, Universite Felix Houphouet- Boigny [email protected]

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Pineapple export chains (continued from page 13) days after flower induction, ethrel is applied either alone or in combination with phosphoric acid, to change the color of the skin from green to yellow. At harvest time, the pineapple is put in crates and then into trucks to be conveyed to the warehouse where it is offloaded and put in chlorinated water. Chlorine sterilizes the pineapple. At this stage, pineapples that sink are moved aside to be sold to the processors. Next, a wax solution is applied to the fruit to prevent mechanical damages. Fungicide is applied at the basal part of the fruit and the pineapples are sorted based on weight and size. Finally pineapples are labelled, packed and sent to the packing house for pre-cooling and cooling at 8 ̊C. From the packing house to Tema seaport, the pineapple is carefully loaded into airconditioned trucks (8 ̊C). At Tema port, there is a packing house where fruits are stored at different temperatures. The pineapple is stored at 8̊C before being loaded on the vessel where the temperature is kept at 8̊ C until it reaches the customer. At Tema port, there is a quality control team that samples pineapple boxes and checks the physical quality of the pineapple before exportation. Conclusion and implications The Ghanaian fresh pineapple supply chain is well-organized. Post-harvest techniques are well-managed to maintain fruit quality. Fruit heterogeneity is controlled at early stages by sorting the planting material and cutting leaves of the planting material weighing more than 600g. From the production site to the customer, the cold chain is maintained, allowing growers to keep the quality of their product. All these conditions explain why Ghanaian producers are able to export such large quantities of fresh pineapple. Acknowledgements I am grateful for the WARC Travel Grant, without which, I could not complete this part of my research. I would like to thank those who participated actively in this study. These are: Mr David Crentsil, infrastructure and post-harvest specialist at the ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr Stephen Mintah and Mr Kwaku Amoafo-Yeboah respectively General Manager and Operations Manager at the Sea-Freight Pineapple Exporters of Ghana (SPEG); Mr George Dzibolosu at Gold Coast Farm Ltd; Mr Anthony Botchway and Mr Daniel Asherow respectively Managing Director and General manager of Bomart Farm; Mr Jerome and Rolland Botchway at Milani Ltd farms; Mr Solomon Benjamin at Chartered Impex Ltd farms and Mr Samuel Kofi Ackah, operations manager at Fruit terminal company limited. I would also like to thank Mr Sarku Enoch, at Legon University. Nicodeme Fassinou WARC Travel Grantee Universte Abomey- Calavi [email protected]

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From Our Fellows Yoruba Language and Culture: Non-Verbal Communicative Signals Asko is a hand gesture. It comes as an impudent and insulting retort to a question perceived to be rude or to someone considered unnecessarily inquisitive. The hand is held out in front of the face, the thumb holds down the last three fingers, thereby freeing the pointing finger and allowing it to stand out, it is then curled up to form a question mark [?]. This gesture may have been derived from the question mark symbol and the verb to ask. The gesture may be used in isolation or with the phrase maa bi, keep asking. An intensification of the asko gesture occurs when accompanied with the phrase Asko o, lobito. With this response, the adult addressee is expected to walk away in shame. Among children, the response is a declaration of fight which immediately ensues. This gesture has now become rarified among the young and hip, who may just say askology. Children early in their socialization are aware of the power of similar non-verbal communicative signals that can be used as means of defense. During my stay in Ibadan, I spent time with a family, asking questions and taking notes. A little girl in the family, just about two years old, who perhaps felt that she was no longer the center of attention, told me off in a very memorable way when I asked her a question. She raised one of her shoulders and brought it down rapidly; (gun ejika) turned her head in opposing direction and walked away. Her mother opened her mouth in disbelief while the other adults broke into fits of laughter.

convey. Gestures have been found to be robust phenomena that even precede speech in children. While linguistic studies of Yoruba language have focused on its oral (including signed language) signals, phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics, non-verbal signals, which have been variously estimated to make up 70 percent of all communications, are undocumented in the literature. During my trip through various Yoruba cities, I recorded scenes illustrating how people make use of space and touch during conversations, the paralinguistic devices that bus conductors use to call passengers, announce their directions, and those that are commonly used to warn drivers to slow down or not pass the vehicle in front of them. Other data that were collected pertained to body movement, posture, gestures, and facial expression including eye contact and gaze.

Existence is mainly cultural; it orientates our being and forms the locus of our references and interpretations. Actions only become meaningful when aligned with the culture that informs them. It is in this context that certain unexpected resistance that I confronted during my trip makes sense. For instance, I was unable to obtain permission from any high school administrator to document their Hannah demonstrates the gesture: Olorun maje, students’ use of gestures through videos or “heaven forbid”. Here she snaps away poverty and evil—mo ta ika osi da’nu. That is “I reject evil, it will photography. The reason always was, “if not be my lot”. parents learn that someone is going to use their children’s images we will have problems. Why do you want peoples’ visual images and My WARA fellowship was to document extant non-verbal gestures anyway? In English, these sentences lack their deep communicational signals from different parts of Yoruba land in cultural interpretation. Yoruba people believe in individual Nigeria. The work stems from the conviction that gestures predestination. Evil doers, given current dire economic pervade our communication and are a necessary companion to situations, are on the prowl to steal the good fortune of other speech. Gestures are often timed to fit our message; they lend people, especially students, and use such to enhance their own vigor to meaning and accentuate emphases. When we ignore lots in life. To use in this sense means to access someone’s gestures, we ignore significant parts of language use, good fortune, often by manipulating their physical images, a communication and culture. A comprehensive linguistic kind of spiritual identity theft. Yoruba films are replete with description of any language must subsume not only phonetics, many instances in which people are robbed of their future phonology, syntax, semantics, and socio-cultural aspects of greatness (ori) through touch, photography or the use of language use; it must also include non-verbal signals. To this contagious magic. Exacerbating this hindrance is my own end, the goal of my fieldwork was to document non-verbal physical appearance. I have greying dreadlocks which make signals, study their socio-cultural use and meaning, and me appear furtive, creating skepticism if not outright fear. examine them in the context of culture change, the effects of Educated and sophisticated Yoruba people and adults are not globalization and popular cultures, and to explore expected to wear dreadlocks. Another reaction is the usual call intergenerational differences. of dada (customary appellation for those with dreads from birth) and the recitation of dada’s oriki (praise poetry). Dada The space between two people may lead observers to describe are considered mystical beings. Now as a spiritual being, toting them as a couple; the way individuals are clothed could make a camera, and asking people to demonstrate various poses; the others describe them as professional, shabby or slutty; cultural instinct for self-preservation kicks in. Ironically, my hairstyle, the smell of cigar or garlic, smile or frown, limp or hairstyle in of itself became a non-verbally communicated firm handshake elicit various interpretations from observers. message that impeded my research. Thankfully, I received All these signals, also known as non-verbal communicational tremendous support and co-operation when trusted signals, frame our interactions and influence the messages we

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From Our Fellows Yoruba Language (continued from page 15) individuals granted me entrance to their various communities; this is a sort of transferred prestige. The family of Kola Olunloyo was especially helpful in Ibadan. They made it possible for me to visit various places, including church, business settings. Through them, I was able to obtain many subjects who cooperated and aided me greatly. So also was the family of Tokunbo Ajanaku. These families not only granted me access to their networks, they willing participated as subjects, they answered my questions and explained things that I did not immediately recognize as significant. In Lagos, I am especially thankful to Prince Ismaila Goloba of Isolo and his family, Mrs. Nkediniruka Onyemem, Mr. Dele and the staff of Novelty Hotel in Yaba, Lagos for their unquantifiable support and participation. Thank you to the many young people who willingly assisted me and participated as subjects. The role of West African Research Association in supporting West Africans in their research efforts in every branch of scholarship cannot be overestimated. I remain very thankful and appreciative of their support in this initial data gathering trip. I am specifically thankful to the Director Dr. Yanco and her staff for their professionalism. Augustine Agwuele Dept of Anthropology, Texas State University-San Marcos [email protected]

Literature in West Africa

Film in West Africa The Mirror Boy: Directed by Obi Emelonye; Nigeria

Aya: Love in Yop City, Marguerite Abouet

This is an uplifting story of the teenage Tijan, an African British boy, who is taken back to The Gambia, the land of his mother's birth, but then gets lost in a crowded street market after witnessing a strange apparition. Tijan embarks on a magical journey in a foreboding forest where he learns more about himself and the mystery of the father he has never seen. With rich cinematography and scenes of the beautiful Gambian landscape, Emelonye brilliantly explores identity in a refreshing and colorful manner. Aujourd’hui Directed by Alain Gomis; Senegal Alain Gomis’ Aujourd’hui (Today) is laced with surprising moments of lightness amid the melancholy tenderness. But there’s a spirituality and soulfulness to the simple allegorical story that keeps it captivating. Starring American actor -musician Saul Williams (Slam), Satche is an apparently healthy man who wakes one morning at his mother’s house on the outskirts of Dakar aware that he will die at the end of that day. This is a place where death warns of its arrival 24 hours in advance, inspiring feelings of dread tempered by matter-of-fact acceptance. Le djassa a pris feu Directed by Lonesome Solo; Cote d'ivoire "Burn It Up Djassa," is a raw dark urban legend, with slam poetry and street beat dance theme. This film is announcing the exciting new artistic movement in the Ivory Coast. The film follows Tony and his tumultuous family situation in the neighborhood plagued by poverty and violence. Tony becomes a Dabagaou, "A gangster" in the djassa, the "ghetto." The film shows the struggle between Tony in his revolt being chased his police officer brother, trying to save his family. 16

Aya: Love in Yop City comprises the final three chapters of the Aya story, episodes never before seen in English. Aya is a lighthearted story about life in the Ivory Coast during the 1970s, a particularly thriving and wealthy time in the country’s history. The Girl Who Can, Ama Ata Aidoo Aidoo looks at the roles and rules, and the games people find themselves playing, often unwillingly. She analyses African women's struggle to find their rightful place in society. In the modern world, where a plastic label identifies us, what is our identity? Will African women be in the driver’s seat in the twenty-first century? With zest and humor, Aidoo raises these questions and provides some challenging answers. An African in Greenland, Tete-Michel Kpomassie Kpomassie was a teenager in Togo when he discovered a book about Greenland—and knew that he must go there. Working his way north over nearly a decade, Kpomassie finally arrived in the country of his dreams. This brilliantly observed and superbly entertaining record of his adventures among the Inuit is a testament both to the wonderful strangeness of the human species and to the surprising sympathies that bind us all. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.

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Spotlight on WARA Lifetime Members This section of the West African Research Association newsletter is dedicated to WARA Lifetime members. The WARA Membership Committee has decided to honor one of the most distinguished WARA Board Presidents, Edris Makward, in our first spotlight.

EDRIS MAKWARD Professor Edris Makward was born in The Gambia of a Moroccan (Fassi) father and a Senegalese mother (Wolof and Waalo Waalo, from the ancient kingdom of Waalo). Educated in The Gambia, Senegal, France, Nigeria (University of Ibadan) and the U.K., Professor Makward received his PhD from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1967. Dr. Edris Makward served as a past Vice Chancellor, at the University of the Gambia (UTG), a university he helped establish in West Africa after retiring from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he now holds the title of Emeritus Professor of African Languages and Literature. The academic career of Dr. Makward demonstrates his enthusiasm for knowledge and commitment to shaping future scholars. As the first ever lifetime member and co-founder of WARA, Edris Makward has truly laid the foundation for future study of West Africa. WARA will forever be indebted to his legacy. Some of his published works include "Lettre d'Amerique", a series of 9 short pieces that appeared in a major West African daily paper, "Le Soleil de Dakar" about a personal tour of the Southern U.S.A. September 1984.  Entry on "L.S. Senghor" in The World Book Encyclopedia.  Chapter on "Francophone African Poetry" in History of African Literature, Oyekan Owomoyela (ed.) University of Nebraska Press, 1993.  Contemporary African Literature (co-authored with Leslie Lacy). New York: Random House,1971.  Principal Convener of African Literature Association Conventions on African soil: Dakar, Senegal:1989, Fez, cco:1999, Alexandria, Egypt: 2003.



included Joseph Harris of Howard University, Crawford Young of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I. William Zartman of Johns Hopkins University, David Robinson of Michigan State University, myself, and several others. As the Goree U.S. Legation option fell through, the idea of a West African Research Center in Dakar was still vigorously pursued thanks to Mary Ellen Lane's persistence and very effective ground work. It was at the next ASA annual meeting, this time in Washington, D.C. that the West African Research Association saw the light of day, and its birth was enthusiastically celebrated at the Lane’s D.C. home. Professor Joseph Harris was elected as WARA’s first President. Through several visits to Dakar, and with the tireless support of Bob Palmeri, then P.A.O. (Public Affairs Officer) in Dakar, we were able to secure our first home, a very modest one, on Boulevard de la Republque, in downtown Dakar, for WARC, the West African Research Center. Professor Eileen Julien was appointed as our first Director in Dakar. Julien, a former talibé of mine, at UW-Madison, is an authentic Creole from New Orleans, but her Fouta Toro Poular ancestry has always been obvious to me! Julien was followed by Dr. Leigh Swigart. The rest is history, with the official letter from President Abdou Diouf formally handed to me at our First WARA International Symposium in July 1997, by one of his Cabinet Ministers, offering us our current home that we are all so proud of, on rue Leon G. Damas, near UCAD. I will close this piece that was supposed to be "short paragraph about my relationship with WARA" with my heart-felt appreciation of the subsequent work and continued improvements of WARC, the West African Research Center by the Center Directors who followed in the footsteps of Leigh and Eileen: Fiona McLaughlin, Oumar N'Dongo, Wendy Wilson Fall and now, Ousmane Sene. Edris Makward —Spring 2013

A Message from Professor Makward

About a quarter century ago, at the 1988 ASA Annual Meeting in Chicago I believe, several Africanist scholars got together with Mary Ellen Lane, CAORC (Council of American Overseas Research Centers) Executive Director, and a couple of State Department officers including Bob LaGamma, to discuss the feasibility of using an old U.S. Legation building on Goree Island as a home for CAORC’s first center in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Africanist scholars who attended that meeting

“I think that as a teacher, scholar, active member, and leader within the Africanist community, Edris is simply an icon. Furthermore, he is down to earth, interacts easily with and inspires a lot of rising West African scholars.” Professor Ibra Sene, College of Wooster


Professor Makward with two Gambian Griots andKora players at ALA Conference in Alexandria, Egypt in 2003.

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DAART Program Reports Programme Assainissement –Recyclage Ordures (PARO) Visiting DAART fellow’s program, ‘PARO-CI’ in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, to learn and see how the PARO team operates on a daily basis was quite impressive and was truly an eye opening experience. Between January 29 and February 1, 2013 I was on a field visit for the monitoring and evaluation of our DAART recycling project in Cote d’Ivoire. The PARO-CI team led by Evariste Aohoui gave a thorough presentation of their organization, its various units and their achievements and successes to-date. Specialized in recycling Electronic and Electrical Equipment (EEE), PARO-CI’s efforts go beyond collecting E-waste. The art unit, for example, turns the collected waste into artwork (canvases and plastic-based sculptures). The education unit leads awareness campaigns on E-waste recycling in various schools throughout the country, and the medical unit leads an awareness campaign on medical care for E-waste recycling workers in local hospitals while it gears up to open a PARO-CI E-waste clinic. Led by dynamic young Ivorians—each an expert in his or her area of work—the different units within PARO-CI clearly demonstrate hard work and passion. E-waste is a serious danger to the West-Africa region, with populations that are often unaware that their old electronic devices are a serious threat to their health. The PARO-CI team is doing its part for the environment in a smart and original manner, Congrats! Samira Keita, DAART Steering Committee Member

Can we hope for peace in Guinea without its brave women? Like many African countries, Guinea Conakry has experienced political instability these last couple of years. To better deal with this situation and avoid another civil war, Guinean women organized group discussions with exciting activities, and pledges to support each other in happy and sad moments (weddings, births, funerals and birthdays), laughing and crying together for the sake of Guinea. The elders became the mothers and the youngest the daughters, soussou and fulas became true sisters. How can these ‘political opponents’ stay so closed? Fatima Camara, a powerful young Guinean leader leader used the grant of the DAART program to open an office for the coalition of Guinean political women to train and support each other, and also to fight discrimination within political parties. How can women leaders make this action sustainable to better allow Guinean people unity? By creating a better environment for women to participate in politics and fight for their rights, freedom and peace, there will be unity in Guinea. Fatima and her group played a strategic role in the national process of reconciliation. They now have easy access to all political parties and to the Independent National Electoral Commission to assist the government in negotiations. With this completely equipped office (computers, board, printer, conference room, internet connection), women from different culturess, religion, and regions will benefit from a space to think about strategies to contribute to the economic, social, economical and political development of their country. We cannot finish this article without replying to our first question: Can the Guinean dream of peace be realized? Yes, these ladies can! Aissatou Padane, DAART Steering Committee Member

COFRAÏR pour la Paix et la Développment My name is Rachid KOLLO Fellow of Dakar American Applied Research Train (DAART) program of the West African Research Association (WARA). I would like to thank WARA and WARC for the opportunity to improve our small organization. This training has helped me grow from just another youth into a real leader. I learned an immense amount from WARC on leadership, design and project management, networking, and other crucial skills. Thanks to WARA/WARC, I am proud to say that I am a NTA (new type of African)! Since my return to Niger, we at COFRAIR are conducting a campaign to raise public awareness on the promotion of the Culture of Peace and Democracy. The goal is to explain to young women that they can change their life situation without taking up arms. Democracy allows them to choose men and women capable of change. We have already reached 15 fadas and women's groups and 9 high schools and ‘colleges.’ We take the rostrum of WARA to appeal to other partners to help us open The School of a Second Chance and, beyond the school, to help COFRAIR in its promotion of general welfare. Our goal is to run a school during the site visit of DAART Supervisors to Agadez. The School provides a second chance to school leavers. We contacted some partners and we entered the competition with the school project. We have received a portion of the DAART grant ($11,235 USD) in August and have started ordering some of the equipment that will be used to open a cyber cafe to ensure our sustainability. The cafe opened in October 2012. You can see the activities at: www.cofrair.wordpress.com & www.facebook.com/cofrair

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DAART Program Reports Mutations—Investigative Journalism in Burkina Faso Touwendinda Zongo is also leading by example in Ouagadougou, with his team of journalists bringing a critical and analytical edge to journalism in Burkina Faso. The Mutations bi-monthly paper is bringing investigative journalism back to life in Burkina Faso by reporting on underpublicized issues occurring in remote areas of the country. Often travelling to difficult zones using motorcycles, the most common public transportation in Burkina Faso, Mutations reporters are exposing serious issues not being reported on by mainstream media outlets in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso. These have included stories on unpunished crimes committed by authorities who sought to alleviate local populations’ grievances (Poutyenga incident), and project proposals submitted by young entrepreneurs to CONFEJES (Conference of the Ministers for Youth and Sport of Countries sharing the use of the French language) that are being delayed back due to the government’s arrears in the payment of contributions. Our friends from Mutations are also creating links with the national electoral commission (CENI) for electoral reporting and are partnering with local radio station ‘Savane FM’ to broadcast on a program that presents Mutations articles to listeners in local languages. Well done! Samira Keita, DAART Steering Committee Member

The Magic Thermal Basket Abibatou Banda Fall is actively contributing to the promotion of renewable energy and natural resource management with her innovative “Thermos Basket”. The Thermos Basket reduces the labor burden on households and also reduces the consumption of gas and wood by some 30 percent. The basket is filled with cotton or kapok which serves as insulation to maintain heat or cold for nearly 24 hours. This helps women save significant amounts of time and money. and explains why it is called the “magic basket”. Abi Banda is advertising the thermos basket in urban areas but her focus is mainly on rural people. The product is easy to use and as soon as people test it, they cannot wait to use it again. More than a hundred women have been trained since the beginning of the program in November 2012 and almost 20 different local and foreign meals have been tested with great success. It even can keep water or food cold as a fridge. “Since I am using the magic thermos basket, I have now more time to do business and to attend meetings”, said a lady of Ngay Mekhe. “My children look good and they have fewer stomach aches since I started using the Thermos Basket because the food keeps all its vitamins. I just need fifteen minutes to make everything in the pot and go to start other activities!” said another woman from St Louis. The “Magic basket” is not only an ecological solution but it can also help to solve the question of “African cotton”, as Professor Sene, the Director of the West African Research Center and the DAART chief of delegation, has noted. If this innovative product is widely adopted, Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal will find a new market for their cotton.’ Aissatou Padane, DAART Steering Committee Member

Cadre de Concentration des filles: femmes des partis politiques de Guinee At CCFPPG, we are working to strengthen solidarity between girls/women and their political skills to insure their effective participation in political debate in the Republic of Guinea. We are convinced that female solidarity is the best way to promote women's skills at all levels; and that girls / women are the numerically largest electorate, and are committed to transcending the usual divisions to defend the interests of girls / women in politics. We Girls/Women Political Parties of the Republic of Guinea, decided to create a space for exchange and sharing of experiences and good practices called Cadre de Concertation des Filles/Femmes des Partis Politiques de Guinee, abbreviated as CCFPPG. This framework consists of four commissions, and an executive who is elected for a term of one year, renewable once. It elects: A spokesman, a spokesman Assistant  three (3) Technical Secretaries,

 

two (2) accounting for treasurers CCFPPG,

two (2) Secretaries of Foreign Relations We had the opportunity to serve as spokesperson for the framework and to be selected from among 100 young people from West Africa to participate in the DAART program and receive funding to realize a project called electoral clinical center which aims to promote citizenship and strengthen the capacity to promote greater involvement of girls and women in decision-making bodies. I, Fatima Camara was chosen to represent CCFPPG in the DAART program. There, I was equipped with new skills to bring back to our organization. Thanks to this support of the DAART program, we had a place in the decision-making of political affairs of our country. It was one of my great experiences and I hope that this work will be continued. Contact us: https://www.facebook.com/CCFPPG/timeline


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Feature Articles Film Production in Francophone West Africa management and lack of skills brought a series of bankruptcies, restructuring, reorganization, and finally, in the 1980s, the vanishing of these groups. Many initiatives taken by filmmakers led to the creation of FEPACI (Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers), FESPACO, the charter of African filmmakers, and the Niamey Manifesto, all landmarks in the activism evident at independence, but which nonetheless failed to establish enduring cinematic cooperation among African countries. So here we are, more than 50 years after independence, confronted by a cinematic industry that is not playing its role in promoting and maintaining a filmmaking economy appropriate to our audiences, our authors and socio-cultural realities.

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platforms have had the effect of discouraging private investors. A number of proposed measures, promises, and laws to address these problems have been ineffective. In Senegal, for example, the code of the film industry, developed in collaboration with film industry professionals and adopted in 2002 is still not applied. This code included the establishment of a fund to support the film industry in production, distribution, and exhibition.

FESPACO

The situation, however, has considerably changed with the democratization of digital production techniques. This has had positive consequences. The short fiction and documentary in particular have experienced a boom with the advent of film schools such as isis, ESAV, imagine, and Africadoc; and film workshops such as the caîcedrat workshop, Samba Felix Workshops, Festival Image et Vie, and cine –banlieue.

African productions from the 1960s and 1970s centered around the denunciation of all forms of domination through films in the vein of Ousmane Sembene (Senegal) and https://fespaco.bf/ Oumarou Ganda (Niger) such as “Black Girl,” “Le Wazzou Polygame,” “Emitaî,” “Concerto These productions by young filmmakers pour Un Exil,” but these were but a drop in the flow of have mostly been made possible thanks to EU funding awarded spaghetti westerns and Chinese, Hindi, Egyptian, French, and to cultural organizations, associations, and other festivals. All Hollywood films flooding the theaters. Moviegoers have come these productions unfortunately go unnoticed within a to be shaped to the consumption of B movies, the waste of population that does not necessarily have the spaces to see foreign film conglomerates. them or the abilities to decipher them. With Urbi et Orbi, came a cinema of "directors", in the words of Baba Diop, always on the lookout for availability of money without any real economic perspective. "A dream of pellicle languishing in the bottom of a poorly ventilated cellar" (Isabelle Boni - Claverie). And who would finance all this? Apart from the directors themselves, it was the French Ministry of Cooperation, Francophonie, the European Development Fund, channel France International, and Canal +. As Jean Pierre Garcia put it, the number of films shot each year was closely related to the various aid funds made available by France and the European Union. This period of the 1980s and 1990s brought us films like “Yaaba”, “Yeelen” “Dancing in the Dust”, “Hyenes”, and “Wend Kuuni” among others. It should be noted that these films have marked the beginnings of a greater presence of our productions on the screens of major events in world of film and most importantly, have awakened the cinematic vocations of the generations born after independence. Today Since African states were not investing in the film industry, successive generations of filmmakers ended up institutionalizing the financing of African productions through Western funds. The structural adjustment policies of the early 1990s (which played an important role in minimalizing the role of governments in the film entertainment industry) and the arrival of digital media and its various distribution

Cinematography or videography? One of the major debates centers around the legitimacy of the cinematic wave of digital productions, mostly made by young people. One consequence of the lack of production companies is the rush of newly-trained young technicians and directors to new television channels that are constantly being created in the ECOWAS region. What's more, there are a lot of corporate films that are often featured in cultural events and on television channels. The artistic blur becomes increasingly opaque in terms of some of these films with access to big African or foreign festivals. While the younger generation of film makers becomes more present in the field, there is a sense that ‘the old guard’ is denying them the technical quality, discursive and aesthetic, of properly cinematic films. A generation of African filmmakers with European nationality, often controversial because of sensitivities considered "European" by locals, has also emerged (e.g., the guild). This is the case of Dyana Gaye, Sarah Bouyain, Alain Gomis and Mati Diop. Most of these films are “autoproductions”, each director is his own production house, his distribution and exhibition company. Funding, mostly foreign and institutional, is increasingly needed but greatly reduced: why give € 800,000 to a movie if it is possible to produce it digitally for € 250,000? African films for film festivals abroad? With the absence of adequate structures for diffusion, most films have made their ’careers’ in Western festivals, provoking

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Feature Articles Film Production in Francophone West Africa (continued from page 20) the ire of moviegoers and film professionals in Africa. The number of festivals labeled "South" (the Apt, Cordoba, Milan, Lausanne, Besançon, New York, etc.) are the few windows where these films are projected. Some African films "of good quality" are seen in Cannes, Toronto, Berlin or Venice, but this is the exception. Those who are lucky enough to be screened in Africa, even once, often face public misunderstanding, due to a cinematic aesthetic and syntax unfamiliar to audiences. Moreover, TV channels do not broadcast them. Nor do the majority of these movies enter distribution networks in the Western countries of their production houses. Attempts have been noted here, particularly with films like "Bamako" (Abderrahmane Sissako) and "The Price of Forgiveness" (Mansour Wade), and more recently, "Da Monzon" (Sidy Diabate), "Ramata" (Leandre Andre Baker), "La Pirogue" (Moussa Toure), and "Tey (today)" by Alain Gomis. Once the international festival circuit completed though, after a period of two to three years, our best films end up stored in the file drawers of oblivion. The 2013 FESPACO theme is "African Cinema and public policy in Africa." Does this mark a commitment to support the growing momentum of independent film industry? Can it move our governments to invest in the real management of our images, and to provide a cultural response to the rain of contents that we face? Only the future will tell. Albert Sylla Director of Festival, Groupe Image et Vie [email protected]

West African Research Association Association de Recherche Ouest Africaine On the next two pages we feature bios of each of the WARA Board members, with an indication of the committee(s) each serves on. We begin here with the President of the WARA Board, Scott Youngstedt; and with the President of the AROA Board, Ibrahima Thioub. We are grateful to both of them for their outstanding leadership. Youngstedt has served on the WARA board since 2007, when he was first elected. He became Vice-President in 2009, and in 2012, took over the presidency. Thioub has served as president of WARA’s sister association, AROA (Association de Recherche Ouest Africaine) since 2004. He is ably assisted by the AROA Secretary General, Ibrahima Seck, also a historian, currently based in New Orleans (see article on page 5).

Scott Youngstedt WARA Board President Scott M. Youngstedt is currently the President of WARA and Professor of Anthropology at Saginaw Valley State University. He has been committed to WARA for many years. He has served on the Board of Directors since 2007, and as Vice President from 2009-2012. He participated in the 2005 WARA Summer Institute in Ghana, and was a co-organizer of the Saharan Crossroads: View from the South conference held in Niamey in 2011. Youngstedt has also co-led three Study Abroad programs in Dakar in collaboration with Ousmane Sene, Executive Director of WARC, and is planning a fourth program for summer 2013. He is the author of Surviving with Dignity: Hausa Communities of Niamey, Niger (Lexington Books, 2012). Youngstedt’s work has been published in Africa Insight, African Studies Quarterly, African Studies Review, and City and Society, among other places. He is Co-Editor with Tara Flynn Deubel of Saharan Crossroads: Historical, Cultural, and Artistic Linkages between North and West Africa (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013).


Ibrahima Thioub President AROA

Ibrahima Thioub, internationallyknown historian and Professor of History at University Cheikh Anta Diop, is the current president of the Association de Recherche Ouest Africaine (AROA). As such, he works closely with WARC on a range of programming issues, including the WARC Lecture Series, WARC Travel Grants, and the preparation of CREPOS graduate seminars. Professor Thioub’s work focuses on African history through African lenses. He is part of the international team of scholars researching and writing on the slave trade(s) within the context of African social, economic, cultural and legal contexts. The group has organized conferences in Canada and Cameroon. Professor Thioub works closely on H-Africa and H-West Africa. In 2012, Professor Thioub wàs àwàrded àn honoràry doctoràte from the Universite de Nantes for his groundbreaking work.

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WARA Board Louise Badiane

Louise Badiane is a medical anthropologist with interests in applied medical anthropology, global health, sexual and reproductive health, African ethnomedicine, African immigrants health issues in the US and Europe. Current research projects include and ethnomedical study of female Mankagne healers in Senegal, Guinea Bissau and Gambia; an applied anthropological study to improve the health status of the villagers of Haer, Senegal; an ethnobotanical study of indigenous medicines among herbalists in Ziguinchor, Senegal; a multi-sited critical analysis of African diasporic engagement in homeland health, US, Senegal and Ghana; an ethnographic study of Senegalese hair-braiding in the U.S.A; and an ethnographic study of Rastafari youth in the city of Ziguinchor, Senegal. Badiane is the chair of the WARA Board Program committee and serves as the Treasurer of the Association of African Studies Programs (AASP).

Rebecca Golden-Timsar

Rebecca Golden-Timsar was elected to the WARA board in fall 2012. Her research interests include gender, violence, youth, oil and extractive economies, religion, and contemporary African society. Prior to earning her PhD at Tulane, she worked as Head of Mission for Medecins sans Frontieres/MSF for ten years in Angola, DRC, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and India. She served on the MSF/USA board 2007-2010, and is currently on the Board of Directors for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. At present, she is working on an article that examines the extent to which indigenous cosmology shaped and legitimized the ‘struggle’ for young Ijaw men in the oil-rich Niger Delta of Nigeria against the Nigerian Government. She has another article en route for publication entitled “Idioms of Petro-masculinities: War spirits, Water, and Tying power in the Niger Delta” that unravels the productive aspects of male power and bodily transformations in armed conflict. In the fall, she will be teaching at the University of Houston. Golden-Timsar has served as a reviewer for WARA Peace Fellowships and is on the WARA Board Finance and Development Committee.

Jemadari Kamara

Jemadari Kamara serves as WARA Board Treasurer and chair of the WARA Finance and Development Committee. He is the codirector of the Center for African, Caribbean and Community Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB). The center is involved in educational, environmental, economic and community development projects in the Caribbean, West Africa and urban America. He first became involved with West Africa attending Fourah Bay College in 1969. Subsequently, he has continued to live and work throughout the region teaching on senior Fulbright assignments at the Universite Nationale du Benin (Cotonou 1985-1987) and most recently at Universite Gaston Berger (UGB – St. Louis, Senegal 2001-2002). During his tenure at UGB he co-directed a community development project establishing a community resource center in the St. Louis region. Also, he has served as the chairman of the Massachusetts delegation to the National Summit on Africa/Africa Society. Most recently, Kamara was the co-organizer of a two country conference on the roles of Leopold Senghor and Amilcar Cabral, with the Senghor portion taking place in Senegal and the Cabral portion in Cape Verde. Kamara is currently on sabbatical in West Africa.

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Matthew Christensen

Matthew Christensen joined WARA Board of Directors in 2012. Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas, Pan American, Christensen’s research explores the relationships between popular cultural forms and social and political formations. His book, Rebellious Histories: The Amistad Slave Revolt and the Cultures of Late Twentieth-Century Black Transnationalism (SUNY 2012) traces contemporary literary and visual cultural accounts of the 1839 Amistad slave revolt. These accounts open up critical spaces in Sierra Leone and the United States for scrutinizing the specific effects of past and present global economies on people of African descent. His current research assesses the ways that African popular genre detective novels generate fictive truths to mediate the chasm between popular and official narratives of justice in moments of acute transformation in the relationship between the individual and the state. Christensen serves on the WARA Board Program committee.

Hilary Jones

Hilary Jones joined the WARA Board of Directors in 2012. Her article, "Rethinking Politics in the Colony: The Metis of Senegal and Urban Politics in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century," appeared in the Journal of African History 53:3 (2012)., and her monograph, “The Metis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa,” is scheduled for publication by Indiana University Press in February 2013. Both works elaborate on Senegal's political history by looking at the strategies that people of mixed racial ancestry used to negotiate with an occasionally contest French practices and policies., and add to a growing literature on race, class, and gender in colonial Africa. Jones joined the editorial team of a new interdisciplinary peer-review research journal dedicated to the study of West African history. The Journal of West African History seeks to provide a forum for serious scholarship and debate on women and gender, sexuality, slavery, oral history, popular and public culture, and religion. Jones serves on the WARA Fellowship committee.

Ismael Montana

Ismael Montana ,who joined WARA Board of Directors in 2012, is Assistant Professor of History at Northern Illinois University. He was appointed by UNESCO's International Scientific Committee for the Slave Route Project to serve as a coordinator of a new project aimed at promoting research on the slave trade and slavery in the Arab and Islamic context. In December 2012, Professor Montana travelled to Ghana where he launched an Endangered Archives Programme’s research grant to digitize endangered historical records at the Public Records and Archives Administration (PRAAD) in Tamale (Ghana). Among his research activities, he presented a paper entitled, “The French Revolutionary Wars and Slavery in the Mediterranean Frontier of Ottoman-Tunis,” in a multi-session workshop on War and Slavery at the American Historical Association in New Orleans in January 5, 2013. He has a forthcoming book entitled, The Abolition of Slavery in Ottoman Tunisia (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, August 2013). Montana has been active in the WARA/AIMS Saharan Crossroads Initiative and serves on the WARA Newsletter committee.

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WARA Board Mbare Ngom Mbare Ngom was elected to the WARA Board of Directors in 2012. His latest scholarship includes an article entitled, “Geografîas urbanas: representacion e identidad en la literatura africana en espanol”[“Urban Geographies: Representation and Identity in African Literature in Spanish”], which appeared in Perifrasis. Revista de Literatura, Teoria y Critica. Volumen 3, Numero 6 (Julio-Diciembre 2012). The essay explores the representations of urban geography and its problematic in African literature in Spanish and the representation of urban realities as spaces of heterogeneous experiences, be they cultural, political, or renegotiation of identity. Recently, Ngom was invited to serve on CAORC's Multi-Country Research Fellowship Selection Committee. In February 2013, he traveled to Cuba to participate in the presentation of two of his books on African literature in Spanish at “Havana International Book Fair.” Ngom chairs the WARA Membership committee.

Ismail Rashid Ismail Rashid, Professor of history at Vassar College, was elected to the WARA Board of Directors in 2010, and current serves as Board Secretary. Among his recent projects are the publication of “Epidemics and Resistance in Sierra Leone During First World War” (Canadian Journal of African Studies, 2011) and “Religious Militancy and Violence in West Africa” (With Kevin O’Brien) in Militancy and Violence in West Africa edited by James Gow, Funmi Olonisakin, and Ernst Dijxhoorn (forthcoming Routledge 2013). Professor Rashid is also working on an anthology (with Professor Sylvia Macaulay of Truman State University) tentatively titled, The “Province of Freedom” at Fifty: Paradoxes of History and Memory in Post-colonial Sierra Leone (forthcoming 2013). Professor Rashid also serves as Chair of the WARA Fellowship committee.

Pearl Robinson Pearl Robinson is Associate Professor of Political Science and former Director of the Program in International Relations at Tufts University. She has been a Ford Foundation Visiting Professor at Makerere University, the University of Dar es Salaam, and a Research Affiliate of the Universite Abdou Moumouni in Niamey. A comparativist who has authored more than forty articles and book chapters. She is a contributor to Transformation and Resiliency in Africa, and co-author of Stabilizing Nigeria: Sanctions, Incentives, and Support for Civil Society. Robinson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, past President of the African Studies Association, and former chair of the SSRC/ACLS Joint Committee on African Studies. She has served on the national boards of OxfamAmerica, TransAfrica and the National Council of Negro Women’s International Division. Her two current projects are “Mama Kiota,” a documentary on Islam and female empowerment among the Tidjaniyya in Niger, and Ralph Bunche the Africanist, an intellectual biography. Professor Robinson serves on the WARA Finance and Development committee.

Ibra Sène Ibra Sene is Assistant Professor of History at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Elected to the WARA Board of Directors in 2010, Sene is the author of numerous articles and is currently working on a book manuscript, Discipline and Punishment in French Colonial Senegal: A History of the Prison System as an Institution of Colonization, ca.1830- ca.1960. Dr. Sene has several research projects on colonial politics of punishment, including juvenile detainees, the construction of the concept of crime, penal labor, and imprisonment and the Atlantic connections. Dr. Sene has presented papers at a number of professional conferences, including the African Studies Association meetings, is currently working on a project on the history of the Senegalese institutions of higher learning, in collaboration with Professor Barrel Gueye. Sene serves on the Executive Committee of the Senegalese Education Trust (SeneTrust), since 2011. He serves on the WARA Membership committee.

Tarshia L. Stanley Tarshia L. Stanley was elected to the WARA Board in fall 2011. Currently Chair of the Department of English at Spelman College, Professor Stanley is in the process of founding the Octavia E. Butler Society in honor of the most important black women writers in the speculative genre. The Octavia E. Butler Society will have it's first national business meeting at the American Literature Association conference in May. Stanley is at work on a paper identifying Africa and it's alternate history as a common theme in contemporary African Diasporic speculative fiction and is also examining science fiction film by African directors. Her most recent article, "Father Africa: Counter-Narratives of Masculinity in Sembene's Faat Kine and Moolaade,” appears in Lohoucine Ouzgane's Men in African Film and Fiction (2011). Stanley serves as chair of the WARA Newsletter committee and on the Membership committee. West African Research Association

Wendy Wilson-Fall Wendy Wilson-Fall, Associate Professor in Africana Studies at Lafayette College, recently assumed the directorship of the Africana Studies Program. Previously, Wilson-Fall served as Chair of Pan African Studies at Kent State University, Ohio (2004-2012). Wilson-Fall, a social anthropologist, works on themes of identity, culture, local histories and migration. New research plans focus on the problem of youth in nomadic communities in West Africa, using a historical and ethnographic lens. She will be presenting at the Saharan Crossroads 2013 conference on a related topic. In addition, she is currently doing revisions for a book on African American family narratives about connections to Madagascar, which should be in press by next fall. Wendy recently took on leadership for the development of a Study Abroad program at Lafayette that will focus on Senegal and Martinique. The program received a Mellon grant through a college competitive process. Wilson-Fall serves as Vice President of the WARA Board of Directors and on the Fellowship committee.

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2012-2013 WARA Highlights Windows to West Africa Black History Month Art Exhibit

2013 WARA ASA Roundtable Don’t Miss It!

WARA collaborated with the Daughters of Yemaya Collective and the City of Brookline to mount this exhibit , Windows to West Africa, marking Black History Month. The exhibit featured ceremonial and everyday objects from West Africa and was curated by Boston University alumna Helen Banach. It featured works by former WARA resident scholar Yelimane Fall, and a piece by former WARC Director, Wendy Wilson Fall. The exhibit was featured prominently on the front page of the Brookline Tab Newspaper.

US Immigration Reform: Implications for West Africans on Both Sides of the Atlantic

The opening reception took place February 15, 2013 at the Brookline Senior Center and featured a West African drumming performance by Malian drum master Joh Camara. The closing ceremony took place March 1, with a lecture by renowned art historian, Professor Bolaji Campbell of the Rhode Island School of Design. In his talk, Professor Campbell discussed objects in the exhibit and their origins and meanings, and the esthetic links between West African and African American artistic production. Of particular Professor Bolaji Campbell, Rhode interest was an image he Island School of Design projected of a quilt made by Harriet Powers, a 19th century African American quilter, which incorporates techniques and motifs seen in the famous Dahomey tapestries of West Africa. He noted how American quilting traditions retain this heritage and pointed to the quilt work by seniors on display at the Brookline Senior Center. The event was well-attended and the lecture was the perfect ending to a beautiful exhibit. The Opening and Closing Receptions were catered by the small West African restaurant in Cambridge, Bytes @ University Park.

Joh Camara (right) and Berklee College of Music student, Kofi Atsimevu performing

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In May, the exhibit traveled to Bridgewater State University where WARA board member and Chair of the Program Committee, Professor Louise Badiane, arranged to have it as part of their Africa Week program and Helen Banach once again served as curator.

Immigration policies and efforts to reform them are politically charged. They bring forth questions regarding national identity and rights of citizenship as well as human rights and questions of justice within the global labor market. This roundtable discussion will highlight US immigration policy reforms that will impact the future lives, work prospects and mobility of West Africans and by extension their kin who remain in West Africa. Approximately 75 percent of all foreign born Africans in the United States today arrived within the last two decades. Much of this rapid growth has been due to influxes of West Africans, who now account for about 40 percent of all African migrants in the United States. Given recent oil and mineral discoveries and political turmoil and unrest in West Africa, the region’s citizens and diaspora are feeling vulnerable and uncertain about their future. Roundtable participants include policy analysts, academics, immigration lawyers, immigrant activists, and migration scholars who will provide a broad spectrum of perspectives on these issues. This roundtable will also give the African Studies community the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing discussion about U.S. immigration reform and its effects on African immigrants in the United States. CHAIR: Badiane, Louise African Studies Program Coordinator, Professor of Anthropology Bridgewater State University Zain Abdullah Professor of Religion & Society and Islamic Studies Temple University John Arthur Professor of Sociology & Anthropology University of Minnesota-Duluth Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome Professor of Political Science Brooklyn College-CUNY Editor, Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration Mamadou Sy Institutional affiliation Maryland Governor's Commission on African Affairs Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area Emira Woods Co-Director, Foreign Policy In Focus Institute for Policy Studies

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Member Publications African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review ACPR ACPR volume 3:1 (spring 2013) has articles on nearly all parts of Africa (the DRC, Cote d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Nigeria, and Kenya, Sudan). The papers address issues such as citizenship, gender-based violence war crimes, nationalism, and media representations of war images. The issue also has a multimedia piece featuring video footage of the panel on Peace and Conflict in West Africa that took place this past fall in collaboration with the Cambridge Peace Commission as part of the West African Peace Initiative.

The Journal of West African History (JWAH) Nwando Achebe, Editor-in-Chief Hilary Jones and John Thabiti Willis, Associate Editors, Harry Odamtten, Book Review Editor The Journal of West African History JWAH) is a new interdisciplinary peer-reviewed research journal that will publish the highest quality articles on West African history. Located at the cutting edge of new scholarship on the social, cultural, economic, and political history of West Africa, JWAH will fill a representational gap by providing a forum for serious scholarship and debate on women and gender, sexuality, slavery, oral history, popular and public culture, and religion. The editorial board encourages authors to explore a wide range of topical, theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives in new and exciting ways. The journal is committed to rigorous thinking and analysis; is international in scope; and offers a critical intervention about knowledge production. Scholarly reviews of current books in the field will appear in every issue. And the publication will be in both English and French; an abstract in the other language will be provided of each. Michigan State University Press publishes the JWAH in collaboration with the MSU African Studies Center, and the History Department.

Promotion de la Lecture au Burkina Faso Edited by Felix Compaore, Michael Kevane and Alain Sissao Institut Nationale des Sciences de la Société, 2012. This is a collection of eight articles analyzing the impacts of libraries and library programs in Burkina Faso. The publication was partially funded with a small grant from WARA. La question de la lecture occupe une place centrale dans le processus de developpement de toutes les societes modernes. Ce livre vient combler un vide intellectuel, car il permet de montrer les vrais problemes lies a la lecture au Burkina Faso. Les editeurs Michael Kevane, Alain Joseph Sissao et Felix Compaore ont essaye de se pencher, de façon scientifique, sur la question de la lecture en menant des enquetes quantitatives et qualitatives dans des zones rurales mais aussi urbaines du Burkina Faso afin de cerner de plus pres les habitudes reelles de lecture chez les eleves. Ils ont aussi essaye de faire la correlation entre la lecture et l'implantation des bibliotheques. Les resultats des recherches dans ce volume aboutissent de maniere persistante au fait que la frequentation de la bibliotheque a un impact important au niveau de l'acquisition permanente du savoir. Cet ouvrage vient donc a point nomme pour rappeler que comme les societes developpees, la connaissance s'acquiert dans le systeme educatif moderne desormais par la lecture. See http://www.fastpencil.com/publications/4543-Promotion-de-la-lecture-au-Burkina-Faso Michael Kevane Department of Economics, Santa Clara University

Member Publications Augustine Agwuele "Murid Identity and Wolof Ajami Literature in Senegal," In Development, Modernism and Modernity in Africa Routledge African Studies Series. Taylor & Francis. 2011. Donna Patterson “Women Pharmacists in Senegal, 1945-2000: Examining Women's Access to Education and Property in West Africa,” Journal of Women's History 24.1 (2012): 111-137. “Maîmouna Diop: Improving Senegal's Public Health Sector through Pharmaceutical Equivalence,” Heroes and Great Ideas Column, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 24.1 (2013): 11-14. Jibo Nura “Sule Lamido: A man with phenomenal life story” (2013) Warlord politics, socio-economic crises and garrison democracy in Africa: A case study of Nigeria, Liberia and Democratic Republic of Congo Alex Zito "Sub-Saharan African literature, Ajami." Encyclopedia of Islam, THREE. (with Fallou Ngom) West African Research Association

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Announcements Image et Vie Film Festival

Cambridge Graduate University

This year’s “Image et Vie” film festival will be held from June 14 to 18. The Festival is an international event with a young audience orientation, involving actors from the film world and national and international professionals from different artistic disciplines. It takes place every year in Dakar, and includes a circuit traveling to many parts of Senegal. The Festival is dedicated to showing recent African productions but is open to other cinemas, as well. Projections are usually held at the Douta Seck cultural center and the French Institute in Dakar. Outdoor screenings are organized in collaboration with neighborhood associations to encourage public participation. Activities that are part of the Festival include:

CGU is the world’s first global campus university, crafted by the world’s top scholars for a select cohort of global leaders to have 21st century global impact and beyond. CGU is designed by scholars and practitioners from prestigious and elite universities such as the Harvard, Yale, MIT, London School of Economics, and Oxford. Cambridge Graduate University transforms and empowers global leaders to fulfill their potential and capacity. From the first day of engagement, your career, professional stature, energy, confidence, judgment, respect, identity, network, and economic resources grow.

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June 16, International Day of the African Child. A special show brings about a thousand children for a program focusing on the rights of children.

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The young audience day, a special screening connecting young directors with high school students

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The master class, led by international invitees, directors, and other film professionals

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Initiation or skills strengthening workshops, led by international and local professionals, usually lasting 3 to 4 days

Please visit the Festival at www.imageetvie.org

CGU has expanded its global network in the West Africa region. CGU is in collaboration with the West African Insurance University (WAII) now known as West African University of Finance and Insurance (WAUFIS) Offering Masters and Ph.Ds from its College of Business, College of Global Studies, College of Regulatory Science & Public Health and Education. CGU has expanded its global network in the West Africa region. CGU is in collaboration with the West African Insurance University (WAII) now known as West African University of Finance and Insurance (WAUFIS) Offering Masters and Ph.Ds from its College of Business, College of Global Studies, College of Regulatory Science & Public Health and Education. For more information www.cguedu.com. To apply please contact: Fatima Sillah- Director, Graduate Program Operations. U.S.A.: 001-617-792-5110, West Africa: 220-301-7396 or 220-2089607; E-mail: [email protected]

Friends of African Village Libraries

Leh Wi Tok

As part of Santa Clara University's study abroad program in Burkina Faso, Reading West Africa, students live in villages for six weeks and volunteer in community libraries. During their stay, they work with the librarians and staff of Friends of African Village Libraries to produce photo books that will inspire children and adults to read and come to the library.

Leh Wi Tok is a documentary about radio journalist Andrew Kromah and his struggle to grow an independent network of community -based radio stations in war-torn Sierra Leone, West Africa. Amidst flagrant and persistent political harassment, financial and technical woes, Andrew puts his life on the line to bring information to his voiceless listeners. Visit www.lehwitok.org to learn more; there you can see short film clips from interviews conducted in the summer of 2009, and meet the filmmakers and receive updates as filming and production continue in the United States and West Africa. You can receive news about the premiere screening of Leh Wi Tok and screenings in other locations around the country. Contact us: Topher Hamblett, President Foundation for West Africa 219 Washington Road Barrington, RI 02806 Telephone: 401-289-0273, Fax: 401-289-0273 Email: [email protected] 26

Examples of their work, from counting books to alphabet books to stories about tricksters ("Le Petit Trompeur") are available at http://www.fastpencil.com/users/favlafrica Other study abroad programs in West Africa might want to consider adopting this model; students "give back" to their host communities in a tangible, valuable way, and students also retain a powerful artistic product from their sojourn abroad. Michael Kevane, Santa Clara University

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WARA Officers and Board of Directors Officers President: Scott Youngstedt, Saginaw Valley State University Vice President: Wendy Wilson-Fall, Lafayette College Secretary: Ismail Rashid, Vassar College Treasurer: Jemadari Kamara, University of Massachusetts-Boston Directors Ismael Montana, Northern Illinois State University (2015) Mbare Ngom, Morgan State University (2015) Hilary Jones, University of Maryland-Baltimore (2015) Rebecca Golden-Timsar (2015) Louise Badiane, Bridgewater State University (2015) Matthew Christensen, University . of Texas, Pan American (2014) Pearl Robinson, Tufts University (2014) Tarshia Stanley, Spelman College (2014) Ibra Sene, The College of Wooster (2013) Mbye Cham, Past President (ex-officio) Jennifer Yanco, Director, West African Research Association (ex-officio) Ousmane Sene, Director, West African Research Center (ex-officio) Ibrahima Thioub, President, Association de Recherche Ouest Africaine (ex-officio)

Institutional Members of WARA                         

The Africa Network American University Appalachian State University Boston University Brandeis University Bridgewater State University Colorado College Council for International Educational Exchange DePauw University Earlham College Foundation for West Africa Georgia Institute of Technology Harvard University Hobart and William Smith Colleges Howard University Indiana University Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies Kalamazoo College Kent State University Lafayette College Lesley University Michigan State University Morgan State University Mount Holyoke College New York University

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Northern Illinois University Northwestern University Library Ohio State University Ohio University Pace University Pennsylvania State University Rutgers University Saginaw Valley State University Santa Clara University Smithsonian Institution Spelman College Southern University and A&M College Temple University Tufts University University of California at Berkeley University of California at Los Angeles University of Chicago University of Florida University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Kansas University of Minnesota University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University of Wisconsin-Madison Wells College Willamette University Yale University

The West African Research Association is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) based at the Smithsonian Institution. WARA is the only Sub-Saharan African member of CAORC. More information on CAORC is available at: www.caorc.org. West African Research Association

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West African Research Association Boston University African Studies Center 232 Bay State Road, Room 408 Boston, MA 02215

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NONPROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID GAINESVILLE FL PERMIT NO 702
